


Mirror Image

by VelkynKarma



Series: Specters in Space [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Coma, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Illness, Injury, Kuron (Voltron)-centric, Mental Illness, PTSD, Season 4 Spoilers, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, season 4 compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 04:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12548576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelkynKarma/pseuds/VelkynKarma
Summary: Part 1: The Kerberos mission was a success. So who is this scarred stranger in the mirror?Part 2: “I stole your life. But the least I can do is try to return it. And I will. I promise.”Part 3: Takashi has quite a lot to think about.





	1. Sweet Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! We're back for PlatonicVLDWeek #3! This is my first entry, for the prompt "Sleep." 
> 
> I've had this concept in mind since back in Season 2, inspired by that one tumblr post that occasionally floats around...you'll know the one. Recent revelations in 3 and 4 made it even more plausible, so here we go!

* * *

  
“I'm slowly drifting into slumber,  
Cause I have lost the force to fight.  
It's like a cold hand on my shoulder  
I'll see you on the other side.”  
~The Other Side, Woodkid

* * *

  
  
  
The Kerberos mission is an unmitigated success.   
  
It goes off completely without a hitch. Shiro is genuinely impressed with how well everything works out, if he’s honest. After months of training for every possible disaster scenario—a breakdown on the ship, loss of supplies, communication failure—everything goes smooth as silk. Commander Holt and Matt are able to collect their ice samples, scan the entire moon for signs of activity, and install a number of satellites and telescopes on Kerberos that can be used to search for life outside their solar system. Initial results are inconclusive, but there’s only so many tests that can be run from the shuttle. Sam and Matt talk with exhilaration over the possible discoveries to be found in their hard work for the entire months-long trip home.   
  
Shiro’s still impressed at how excited they get over those samples, but he’s not going to argue. Everyone has a passion for something. Theirs is their study, and his…his is flying, and he’s just flown the most exhilarating job in his entire life. He will never, in all his years, forget this trip.   
  
Returning to Earth goes smoothly as well. Touchdown is on schedule, and there are crowds at the gates of the airport Shiro guides the shuttle to, cheering and waving signs and laughing. His parents, and Commander Holt’s wife and daughter, are waiting with Garrison officials to welcome them home. His mother had even managed to secure permissions for Keith to be there, and he stands proudly next to the others in his Garrison uniform, smiling when he catches sight of Shiro.   
  
It’s a joyous occasion as Commander Holt proudly announces the mission’s success, and allows Garrison officials to start off-loading their hard-won research and samples.  
  


* * *

  
  
Life after that takes some adjustments. There have been advancements in space technology and acclimating between inter-planetary travel, and Shiro’s even experienced it after trips to the moon and Mars colonies. But re-adjusting to Earth gravity again after months of space travel and Kerberos is difficult. And after lightless Kerberos and a complete lack of day/night cycles on the shuttle, getting used to the sun takes a little work. Shiro spends his first weeks back breaking things that don’t float where he puts them, forcing himself to walk around and exercise just to beat gravity at its own game, and trying to get used to sleeping at night like a normal person again even though daylight is just so, well, _bright._   
  
The others have just as much difficulty, of course. Matt calls him more than once to complain about the evils of gravity, moaning about how much he just wants to lay still because it’s less heavy and dizzy that way. “We should have just stayed in space forever, Shiro,” he whines. “Why didn’t we just stay in space forever? Sir,” he adds, belatedly.  
  
Shiro can’t help but laugh at that.   
  
And then of course there are the tours and the booked slots on tv shows and news channels and everything else. They’re international celebrities now, the first humans to ever reach the farthest moon of the farthest planet of their solar system, and everyone wants a news byte. They spend more time going around and talking about the mission than they do actually working on the mission, a fact that Commander Holt is quick to point out every time.   
  
“I can’t be studying those samples here on _Science News Daily,_ ” he grumbles. “Clues of life outside Earth aren’t going to just magically appear on their own!”  
  
“Maybe the aliens will come here,” Matt points out, sounding hopeful. “Wouldn’t that be interesting?”  
  
Shiro’s not entirely sure it would be. He supposes that depends entirely on if they’re friendly or not. Assuming they’re even out there.  
  
But at last, the initial hype begins to die down, and so does his body’s inability to deal with being back on Earth. Shiro takes some leave time to be with his family, and it’s wonderful to see them and his old home again after so long. He takes a week to take Keith on a hiking trip, too, just to give him some of the quality one-on-one time he probably hasn’t gotten with anyone since Shiro’s been away. It’s good to see his family and friend again.   
  
He’d loved the trip to Kerberos, and wouldn’t have traded it for the world, but there are important things back home, too.   
  


* * *

  
  
But all good things come to an end, and eventually Shiro finds himself back at the Garrison, and back to work as usual.  
  
As a now senior pilot—he’d gotten a commendation and increased rank for his successful performance on the mission—Shiro has his own office and more choice about his assignments. But he is still expected to participate in training simulations for the new students and oversee low-level missions, which means a lot of his time is spent on the ground. Things are a bit slow now in between missions, and it gives Shiro a chance to check out his new office and shift through mounds of paperwork as he familiarizes himself with his new duties.   
  
His first day at back at work, the secretary delivers a stack of manilla folders filled with paperwork—in Shiro’s opinion more daunting than the entire flight to Kerberos. He thanks her for delivering them all the same. After she leaves, notices the post-it note stuck to the top of the stack. Expecting a memo or phone number, he pulls it off the stack curiously.  
  
 _Wake up._  
  
Shiro raises an eyebrow at that. Late night for the Debrah, maybe? He crumples the note and tosses it in the recycle bin, and opens the first of the folders, beginning to work his way through the stack.  
  


* * *

  
  
His first week at work is mostly spent with paperwork and getting back on track, but eventually he feels properly acclimated again.   
  
“How was the first week as a head honcho?” Matt asks brightly, as he pokes his head into Shiro’s office. “Has power gone to your head yet?”  
  
“No, but words don’t look like words anymore,” Shiro says with a tired sigh, snapping the last folder shut. “I need to be in the air again. Or at least one of the flight simulators. My hand is cramping from signing things so much.” He flexes his right fingers, working feeling back into them.  
  
“Well, that will have to wait,” Matt says, slapping the top of the paperwork stack. “Dad wants you to come over for dinner tonight with the family. Mom’s making an oven-roast chicken and some of her famous cinnamon bread, and claims she made too much.” He grins wickedly. “I think she’s just concerned about poor Takashi living on canned food and out of a box, to be honest.”   
  
“I don’t live out of a box _all_ the time,” Shiro complains, which is a complete and utter lie. “And we lived off powdered and processed food for months.”   
  
“Not the same, and you know it. That’s space food. It’s a novelty. You know you can’t say no. Please? Katie’s been dying to pick your brain anyway.”   
  
“Well, when you put it that way,” Shiro says with a laugh. “Let me get these put away and I’ll meet you in ten in the parking lot.”   
  
“I’ll hold you to it,” Matt says. Belatedly, as always, he adds, “Er, sir.”   
  
Shiro snorts and shoos him away, and Matt disappears out the door. He shuts down his computer for the night, locks the secure filing cabinet, and grabs the stack of paperwork to hand over to the secretary, now fully signed.  
  
There’s three post its on top of the stack this time. He doesn’t remember them being there before. Each one is a different bright, eye-catching color, and he wonders how he didn’t spot them earlier.  
  
 _Wake up, Shiro._  
  
“Matt and his pranks,” he says fondly, shaking his head as he tosses the notes into the recycling. He collects the paperwork, hands it over to Debrah, and heads out for the night for what is guaranteed to be a delicious dinner.  
  


* * *

  
  
When he returns to work after the weekend, he finds six post-its stuck to his door, each one a different bright color.   
  
_Wake up, Shiro._  
  
 _Please._  
  
 _You need to wake up._  
  
 _Please hear this._  
  
 _Please listen._  
  
 _Wake up._  
  
Shiro frowns at the notes, and looks around for anyone who could have left them. But there’s nobody around, and they could have been left here since he exited the office on Friday.   
  
_Matt’s getting really into this prank,_ he thinks. He wonders if he should ask, but decides not to. No reason to feed into his game. He’s probably just waiting for Shiro to crack so he can get a good laugh out of it.  
  


* * *

  
  
He’s busy in his office for the first hour of the day, getting everything in order. He’s got a lecture to do today with the newest members of the Garrison students, who are thrilled at the thought of getting to listen to and maybe even speak with the pilot of the Kerberos mission. Even after all the return publicity Shiro’s still not entirely used to the fame, but he won’t say no to inspiring a new generation of students to be great and to follow their dreams.   
  
He’s so involved it takes him a while to even remember to go through his emails. When he does, there’s three he can’t identify, all from unknown senders. All three have nothing in the body of the email, and the header is the same for all of them.  
  
 _Come back. Please._  
  
Shiro groans. It’s not authorized to hack government emails to send spam like this. But he wouldn’t put it past Matt to figure out how to pull it off, not after he and his father hoodwinked the Garrison protocol just to talk to their family on the mission. _What they don’t know doesn’t hurt them_ is practically the Holt family motto.  
  
 _This is getting out of hand, Matt,_ he thinks to himself.   
  
He deletes the emails and goes back to preparing his lecture.

* * *

  
  
He has lunch with Keith that day, in between his own duties and Keith’s classes. The Garrison mess hall isn’t cuisine at its finest, but neither Keith nor Shiro are particularly picky when it comes to their food.  
  
Keith is on his own when Shiro enters the room, isolated from others in his class, but he doesn’t appear to notice or care about the little bubble of space around him. That hurts Shiro a little to see. He’d been hoping Keith would make some friends in his class while Shiro had been on a mission. Apparently that had been a false hope, but it doesn’t surprise him either. Keith always has trouble connecting with others.  
  
He sets his tray down and eyes the textbook sitting at Keith’s right hand. “Aviation Engineering? Changing tack, Keith?”  
  
“No,” Keith says. He looks pleased to see Shiro there, and his whole expression lights up immediately, becoming less guarded and withdrawn. “But they’re going to start matching us into flight teams. Even if we have an expert on the team, we’re expected to understand at least a little of the other team duties in order to work together effectively.”   
  
“I remember that,” Shiro says fondly, tugging the textbook over. “Wasn’t really my thing, but at least I could figure out how to talk to my engineer well enough to diagnose problems in the simulations.” He flips the book open to a random page, with a diagram of a shuttle wing labeled with all its parts.   
  
_Chapter 17: Wake up, Shiro!_  
  
“Um, Shiro? You okay?”  
  
Shiro blinks, and looks up from the book. “What? Yes?”  
  
“You sure?” Keith gives him a concerned look. “You kinda went pale all of a sudden. Did you hate engineering that much?”  
  
“No…no, I…” He pauses. “Must have eaten something that doesn’t agree with me.” 

* * *

  
  
He catches Matt heading into the Garrison labs, before he can pass through the security clearance.   
  
“This needs to stop,” Shiro says without preamble.  
  
Matt blinks at him in confusion. “What? Meeting in hallways? I mean, unless neither of us ever goes in a hallway again, that might be a bit diffic—“  
  
“The pranks,” Shiro clarifies, before Matt can get into a good ramble.  
  
“Pranks?”  
  
“Matt, don’t play dumb,” Shiro says, a little exasperated. “The post its. The emails. Did you doctor Keith’s textbook?”  
  
Matt stares at him. “Shiro,” he says after a moment, “ _sir,_ respectfully speaking, I really, legitimately have no idea what you’re talking about.”   
  
For a moment, Shiro is sure he’s lying. But Matt’s poker face is only so good. He can hold it together for a little while, especially if he’s being clever under indirect scrutiny. But challenge him directly and he eventually breaks into a grin or a laugh; he just can’t keep the joke to himself.   
  
He’s telling the truth. He has no idea what’s going on. And suddenly the messages are a lot more scary.  
  
“Shiro?” Matt asks, cocking his head to the left. “You okay?”  
  
“Uh. Yes.” Shiro frowns. “It’s just, somebody’s been leaving me these weird notes everywhere. I thought it was you pranking me. Some of them showed up the other night after you brought the invite to your house for dinner.”   
  
“It’s definitely not me,” Matt promises, holding up both hands in a placating manner, “but I’ll keep an eye out if you like, see if I can’t figure out who’s at it. I mean, I know a lot of the same people you do, right?”  
  
“Right,” Shiro agrees, but somehow the thought doesn’t comfort him any.

* * *

  
The next morning he stops into his office for just a moment, unlocking it long enough to grab his laptop.   
  
Inside he finds over a dozen sheets of paper strewn across his desk. Each one has a handwritten note in bold red marker.  
  
 _Shiro, wake up, please._  
  
For the first time, Shiro feels a chill run down his spine at the notes. Whoever is doing this, they have access to his _locked_ office room. That’s not only a security breach, it means someone is much more invested in this prank than Shiro first realized. Enough to risk a serious offense just to mess with him.   
  
Suddenly this joke isn’t funny anymore.

* * *

  
  
That night he doesn’t sleep well—for the first time since returning from Kerberos.   
  
It’s not even like he has any nightmares. He’s just…he’s restless. His dreams feel strange and uncomfortable, the same way they do when he’s sick. He can’t really remember the contents of them, not fully, but they’re enough to make him feel uneasy, anyway.   
  
_“—not working. Why can’t he hear us?”_  
  
 _“It’s too strong. Whatever this ——, it’s too stro—“_  
  
 _“—ot giving up— —ying. Only the fi—”_  
  
He doesn’t understand the context of them, but it’s enough to make him feel awful the next morning, anyway.

* * *

  
  
He finds six envelopes in his mailbox before heading to work. All of them have no return address and no postage. Inside each is a single sheet of paper, each with the same handwritten messages in bold, thick red marker as before.  
  
 _Shiro, wake up, please._  
  
 _Come back. Hurry._  
  
 _Wake up._  
  
 _Shiro you’ve got to listen. You’ve got to try._  
  
 _Wake up, Shiro!_  
  
He shreds the letters with shaking fingers. Whoever is doing this to him, they know where he lives, and they aren’t afraid to prove it.   
  
And still, he doesn’t know what the hell it is they want from him.

* * *

  
  
He gets thirty more blank emails with only a single header at work that day.  
  
 _Wake up, Shiro!_  
  
Alarmed, he gives Matt the unknown sender’s address, and asks him to track it. Maybe they can find who’s messing with him and gain some kind of advantage. But Matt gets back to him the next day, shaking his head.  
  
“They don’t exist, Shiro.”  
  
“What do you mean? I’ve gotten _dozens_ of these things now.”  
  
“I mean the address _doesn’t exist,_ ” Matt repeats, gesturing frantically. “I had my sister look at it too—Katie’s a wizard with computers, even more than me. We tried to track it, but it goes nowhere. Whoever’s sending this, they’re better than my sister, literally untrackable.”   
  
The question is, who with that kind of skill would be targeting Shiro like this?  
  
He’s not sure, and the worst part is, he’s not even sure if he wants to find the answer or if he dreads it.

* * *

  
  
He doesn’t sleep well again the next night, either.   
  
_“—not hearing us—“_  
  
 _“—adjust for the frequency, then maybe—“_  
  
 _“C’mon, Sh—, hang — there—“_  
  
He wonders who’s talking to him in his dreams, and he wishes they’d stop.   
  


* * *

  
“You okay, Shiro?”  
  
He turns his bleary gaze to Keith, sitting across from him at the lunch table again. “Um? Yes. Sorry.”  
“Did you sleep at all?” Keith asks, frowning.   
  
“Some. Maybe. I don’t know. A little, I think.” Shiro rubs his face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to zone out on you.”   
  
“It’s fine. I get it.” Keith looks concerned more than upset. “Look, I know you don’t like to talk about it, but this has been going on for days. I’m not stupid.” Shiro opens his mouth to protest, but Keith crosses his arms and gives him the _look_ , and he snaps his mouth shut again. “Maybe it’s something you should look into?”   
  
“I’ll think about it,” Shiro says, but internally he thinks, _no way._ Looking into it will probably mean therapy or medications or medical evaluations, and he’s not interested in any of those. He doesn’t even like taking aspirin for a headache, or going to the doctor’s for a cold or minor injury. He’s fine, really. It’s just a short burst of insomnia. It’ll go away on its own.  
  
Keith doesn’t look like he believes him, so Shiro moves the topic along. “You got your team assignments, right?”  
  
Keith makes a face. “Yes.”  
  
“You don’t sound so happy about it.”  
  
“They made me the team captain,” Keith says, looking down at his tray and poking at his food.  
  
“Not uncommon with pilots,” Shiro points out. “And you’ve got an instinctive knack for knowing what to do when.”   
  
Keith scowls. “I’m not a leader, Shiro. Not like you. I don’t think I can do it. I’m no good with people.”  
  
Despite his exhaustion, Shiro’s heart goes out to him. Keith always struggles with connecting to others, and with controlling his emotions and reactions—this is just an extension of that. “Keith. You’ll be _fine._ You might think you don’t have it in you, but I know what you’re capable of. You’ll be a great leader—you just need to learn a little self-discipline.”   
  
Keith snorts at that. “Self-discipline? I can’t even go ten minutes without snarking back at Iverson.”  
  
“Iverson’s a hard one to get along with,” Shiro agrees. “You just need to learn to not blow up at him, or at your team if they make a mistake. If you can get your head on straight, you can do this. I know you can. You just need to focus.”  
  
“Patience yields focus,” Keith says, reciting the mantra Shiro had taught him months ago. He takes a deep breath. “Right. Okay. I can try.”   
  
“That’s all I can ask,” Shiro says, patting him on the shoulder.   
  
Maybe it’s the haze of sleep deprivation, but it occurs to Shiro hours later that the conversation, or at least parts of it, had felt strangely familiar.   
  
_Deja vu,_ he decides. He’s too tired for this, really.   
  


* * *

  
  
More nights of restless, odd dreams. More nights of voices he can’t quite place that he wishes would just quiet already.  
  
 _“—changed—“_  
  
 _“—ainwave fluctuations, something happened—“_  
  
 _“—wasn’t enough though—“_  
  
 _“—c’mon, —ro, keep try—“_  
  
He wonders if he’s ever going to sleep properly again.

* * *

  
  
He attends one of the low level fight simulation classes—Keith’s—to make an appearance and watch the first flight attempts. To his surprise, Matt and Commander Holt are both there too, also to watch.  
  
“Katie was invited to join the program a year early,” Commander Holt explains. “She tested exceptionally. That’s my girl.” His tone is fond.  
  
Matt grins proudly, and doesn’t seem bothered at all by his sister doing even better than him in the Garrison program. “She’s right there,” he says after a moment, finally finding her in the small pack of first-flight students. Shiro spots her as well with Matt’s help, alongside a large dark-skinned student and a skinny kid with a smug look on his face. Skinny kid’s eyes go wide when he catches Shiro looking in their direction, and then he grins with what Shiro recognizes as hero worship.  
  
Shiro chuckles, but something about it seems…seems not quite right. Hero worship doesn’t look right on the kid’s face. For that matter, the orange, white and gray flight uniforms seem out of place on him too.   
  
_Blue,_ he thinks. _Blue would be better._  
  
He wonders what made him think that, a moment later.  
  
Katie chatters excitedly with the larger, dark-skinned student, and for some reason it strikes Shiro as normal, even though he’s never seen the other student before. Something about it does seem off, though. It hits him suddenly—Katie’s ponytail. Whenever he’s visited Commander Holt’s house, she’s always had her hair down. Or—no, that’s not quite right.  
  
“Has Katie ever cut her hair?” Shiro asks absently, as he watches her team duck into the simulation shuttle.  
  
Matt gives him a bemused look. “No,” he says after a moment. “She’s been growing it out for years. I think if you suggested cutting it she’d put a virus in your laptop.”  
  
Shiro snorts at that. _Must just be the different hairdo,_ he thinks, finally. _That’s why she looks off, is all._  
  
Katie’s team crashes their first simulation spectacularly. Their expressions are dejected as Iverson reads them the riot act, and Shiro does his best to keep his face neutral. Inside, he’s laughing a little. No one ever does well on their first simulation. Nobody’s figured out how to be a team yet. It will come with time.  
  
Keith’s team does much better, although as always with the first simulations, they fail too. Shiro watches with tension as the team exits, but Keith appears to have taken Shiro’s words to heart. All three of them look frustrated at the loss, Keith most of all, but he hasn’t snapped at his C.O. or engineer for their failings. The rest will come with time. Shiro’s proud of him.  
  
Hero worship finds him after the class, along with half the other students, and begs for an autograph. “You can make it out to Lance,” he says brightly, a little starry-eyed. Again, it strikes him as wrong somehow, but Shiro takes the paper to sign it anyway.   
  
_Wake up, Shiro! Wake up!_  
  
Shiro stares at the scrawl on the paper. Swallows.  
  
“Sir?” Hero worship—Lance—asks, face falling slightly. “Something wrong? You don’t have to if you don’t want—“  
  
“No, sorry,” Shiro says hastily, scrawling his signature across the page. The pen feels awkward in his right hand, somehow. Nothing feels right, for a moment. “Just got distracted. Here you go.”  
  
Lance’s eyes light up at the sight of his signature. “Thanks, sir!” he says delightedly.  
  
“Maybe it’ll give you some good luck so you don’t _crash_ us all next time,” Katie says behind him, scowling. Next to her, the large, dark-skinned boy snickers.   
  
“Maybe it _will,_ ” Lance snaps back, as they leave together.  
  
Shiro stares after him. _He didn’t do this,_ he knows instinctively. That kid wasn’t responsible for any of this.   
  
What is happening? Who is _doing_ this?

* * *

  
  
 _“—ght idea, but the wrong execu—“_  
  
 _“—rattle the bars———not strong enough——n thoughts and —waves more effective—“_  
  
 _“—eed me. I’ll do it.“_  
  
 _“—sure about this?”_  
  
 _“—one all the way inside—”_  
  
 _“—only one that can save—“_  
  
 _Please be quiet,_ Shiro begs the dreams. _Please just stop._   
  
They don’t listen.

* * *

  
Shiro doesn’t think things could get any worse.   
  
Then he sees his reflection in the mirror, in the morning before he goes to work.   
  
The person staring back at him is not him. Not completely. Certainly there are similarities in the face, in the eyes. But the thick scar across the bridge of his nose isn’t his. His hair is wrong—cut shorter than he likes to keep his bangs, and the undercut he favors is missing. And it’s _white_ , or at least parts of it, but he’s never bleached his hair before in his life.   
  
He stares, eyes wide, breath frozen in his lungs, fingers digging into the bathroom countertop for balance. His not-quite-reflection stares back, equally stunned.   
  
It’s perfectly silent.  
  
After several heartbeats, Shiro finally works up the nerve to move. He raises his right hand to his face, towards the scar. Hesitant. Unsure.  
  
But when his not-quite-reflection mimics him, fingers reaching for its own face, they aren’t flesh and blood. They’re harsh, cold metal, black and gray and entirely unnatural.  
  
Shiro’s screaming before he even realizes it. He backs away from the mirror frantically, back slamming into the glass door of his shower, feeling at his right arm with his left frantically. Still flesh. Still alive. Still—  
  
His not-quite-reflection doesn’t mimic him.  
  
It doesn’t back into the shower door on the other side. It looks startled, and shakes its head. Stares at Shiro. Speaks. It’s perfectly silent, although Shiro can see words forming on his not-quite-reflection’s lips. He can’t make out what they say.   
  
He’s afraid to know, anyway.  
  
His not-reflection looks frustrated. It reaches forward with its left hand, the natural one. Towards the mirror. Towards Shiro.  
  
Shiro shatters it.  
  
He does it before he even realizes. It’s pure, primal, adrenaline-fueled reaction—he smashes his right hand into the mirror before that _thing_ can reach him. The surface cracks, and for one moment there’s half a dozen reaching forms of his not-quite-reflection; but then it breaks, scattering mirror shards all over the sink counter, and that other him vanishes. When he looks down at the broken shards across the countertop, all he sees is himself again: a frightened looking young man with deep, dark lines under his eyes and a now bleeding hand, staring back at himself uneasily.  
  
Shaken, Shiro flees the bathroom, pausing only long enough to grab the first aid kit. He bandages his hand in the kitchen, afraid to go anywhere near any other mirror or major reflective surface in his apartment.   
  
This is more than a prank. This is more than bad dreams. Something’s always been wrong, but Shiro’s starting to realize it’s him.

* * *

  
  
He calls work, and takes a week off, citing illness.   
  
He calls Matt, and lets him know he won’t be in for a week or so, and not to worry.  
  
“Are you okay, Shiro?” Matt asks. “You sound kind of weird.”  
  
“I’m working on it,” Shiro says, before hanging up.  
  
He calls Keith next, and apologizes for having to miss their lunch and any other hang-outs for the next week or so.  
  
“You sound off,” Keith says. Shiro can all but hear him frowning. “What happened?”  
  
“I’m…not feeling well, today,” Shiro answers, after a very long moment. “I’m…I’m looking into it.”  
  
There’s silence for a very long moment on the other end, and Shiro knows Keith is remembering their prior conversation, and realizing the implications of his words. He’s almost afraid of what Keith’s response might be. But after a moment Keith says, “Okay. Let me know if you need help with anything.”  
  
“I will,” Shiro promises.  
  
“I’m serious,” Keith says.   
  
“I know you are. I’ll keep you posted.” And he hangs up there, too.

* * *

  
The next week is spent with doctor’s visit after doctor’s visit.   
  
Shiro’s never been a fan of doctors in general—who is?—but the visits make him more anxious than usual. The bright lights, the cold metal tables, the examinations, the tests that he just has to put up with no matter how uncomfortable they make him…he finds them all exhausting, and all of them spark alarmed feelings in him for no reason he can possibly fathom.   
  
And there are a lot of them. Physical examinations, MRI’s, EEG’s, the works. They ask him about his medical history, if he’s ever had head trauma, did anything potentially traumatic happen during the Kerberos mission or after? His examinations prior to the mission had turned up nothing or he’d never have been allowed to go. The mission is the only factor that doesn’t match up.  
  
But they find nothing worrisome. No tumors, no unusual brain activity that might indicate seizures, no indication of head trauma that might spark hallucinations.   
  
He starts seeing a therapist instead. It’s not clear yet what the cause of the things he’s seeing is, but talking to an expert is supposed to help. Everything is paid for by the Garrison, and they give him a short-term leave of absence, fully paid as well. His therapist is a nice enough woman, understanding and patient. It still feels awkward to discuss this stuff with her, but he supposes it could be worse.   
  
He never goes into details on exactly what happened, but even so he’s embarrassed to admit to his friends and family that he’s seeking help for this sort of thing at all. But all of them are incredibly patient, supportive, and understanding. The Holts are constantly having him over for dinner, to help him stay connected to the world even on his leave. Keith helps him install a new mirror in his bathroom without ever asking or pushing further on what happened to the old one. He’s grateful for their kindness and genuine care.  
  
Everything should be getting better. Everything is as positive as it could ever be.  
  
But the day after his first session he finds over a hundred emails in his inbox from the same unknown, invisible sender as before, and the book Matt loans him from a new series is filled with only one sentence.  
  
 _Wake up, Shiro, please!_  
  
He hopes, if any difference is made, it happens soon.

* * *

  
  
 _“—orry! ——getting weird, and we were————-n’t know what else to do—“_  
  
 _“—was good. That helped————tense. I’m not surprised—“_  
  
 _“But——worked?“_  
  
 _“—saw him. Just for — —aw him. And he—“_  
  
 _“—e resisted it. — -n’t free—“_  
  
 _“—make this work—“_

* * *

  
  
He receives the messages almost daily now. Post-it notes stuck to his doors and computer and refrigerator—  
  
 _Wake up, Shiro!_  
  
—emails to his work account, personal account, and any new accounts he makes to try and escape it—  
  
 _Shiro, please, you have to try!_  
  
—sandwiched into cards inside books and magazines and DVD cases—  
  
 _Shiro, please, come back!_  
  
—handwritten notes stuffed into his mailbox, or inside sealed bills—  
  
 _Shiro, please wake up, please!_  
  
—scribbled in steam after a shower, or scratched on the walls in pencil—  
  
 _Shiro, please, you’re running out of time!_  
  
They frighten him every time, still, but it’s a different sort of fear—a numb sort of fear, one he can’t do anything about. He has no power to fight this. Everything he’s done to try and stop it has failed.   
  
He doesn’t sleep as well any more. He can hear chatter most nights, and feels restless and sick with anxiety and tension that he can never quite place. He’s not sure why he feels so anxious, or why this sense of urgency hovers over him when he sleeps. During the day it’s not as strong, but he feels mentally and physically drained, barely able to accomplish anything productive.   
  
But the worst is his not-reflection.  
  
It hasn’t gone away. Shiro doesn’t see it always, but he recognizes the scarred stranger with bleached hair and a frighteningly unnatural arm whenever he sees it. It appears again in the new mirror the day after Keith helps him install it. It’s expression is hard to place; Shiro almost wants to say _concerned_ or _scared,_ but that can’t be right for some frightening lie only his eyes can see. It tries to talk to him again, but again there’s no sound, and Shiro can’t quite read its lips. It reaches out a hand for him again, the left one, the natural one, just like before.   
  
Shiro doesn’t break that mirror this time, but it’s a near thing.  
  
The not-reflection is gone when he enters the room again, after fleeing it, but it returns again the next day, and the next, sometimes more than once. He starts to dread using the bathroom for anything, and tries to avoid looking at the mirror whenever possible, but it never works for long. Always it’s the same thing—it appears, it tries to talk, it reaches for him. It takes Shiro five visits to finally make out the silent words on the stranger in the mirror’s lips.  
  
 _Shiro. Wake up. Let me help you. Listen!_  
  
He covers the mirror in the bathroom with a towel after that, frightened and shaking.   
  
But the scarred stranger is relentless. It appears in any reflective surface it can find after that. The mirror in Shiro’s hallway (Shiro covers that with a towel, too). The reflection in the television screen when it’s turned off (Shiro leaves it on constantly, now, muted, if he can’t stand the noise). His laptop screen when it’s shut down (that stays on constantly now, too). The glass of the shower stall (he replaces it with shower curtains instead). The reflection in his windows (he keeps the blinds drawn now, always). The warped reflection in his car’s shiny finish, or watching in the rearview mirror (he walks anywhere he can). Even reflections in storefronts and passing cars, things Shiro can do nothing about. And always, it’s the same message. Pleading. Reaching.  
  
 _Shiro, wake up. Please! Let me help you! Listen! Hurry!_  
  
“You look terrible,” Matt says, worry clear in his face, as he visits. His mother, Colleen, has taken to sending care packages for Shiro constantly now—healthy meals and bags of groceries, mostly, things Shiro finds he grabs less often the more he avoids his car. Matt’s busily stacking everything into his refrigerator and cabinets as he talks. “How _are_ you doing? The sessions helping any?”  
  
Not really. Shiro’s upped his meetings from once a week to three, but although his therapist works with him with patience and dedication, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. His short-term leave from the Garrison has turned into a long-term leave at her suggestion. “Yes,” he says instead.   
  
Matt knows he’s lying, but he doesn’t push it. They all know Shiro’s already doing everything he can. They’re just trying to do everything they can to help, too.  
  
Keith comes over more and more often, sometimes skipping classes at the Garrison to do so. “You shouldn’t,” Shiro insists. “Miss too many and you’ll get dropped out—“  
  
“I can live with that,” Keith says, blunt and to the point. “I’m more worried about you.” And Shiro feels awful for Keith risking his education and potential career over _him._ He makes up for it where he can, tutoring Keith in anything he can think of that he knows will help him pass the classes he’s missing.  
  
But he can’t deny the visits help, marginally. When Keith is there, or Matt, or his parents, or _anyone_ really, the messages and the reflections seem to go away for a little while. Shiro’s not sure what it is about _people_ that drives those things off, but it helps, and his friends are all smart enough to pick up on it. Keith often spends the night sleeping over on his couch, and the Holts or his parents will have him stay the night for a few days, just for a change of pace.   
  
He wonders if this is his life now. Destined to be fearful of a scarred stranger in the mirror while clinging to the presence of others because he can’t handle life on his own anymore. When did everything go so wrong?   
  
He tries to hold on to that joy he first felt when traveling to Kerberos. But it keeps slipping through his mental fingers, like a fake memory he can’t quite hold onto.

* * *

  
  
_“—ing’s working!”_   
  
_“Every time — —ake headway he rejects—nning out of time—“_   
  
_“—yourself up—ying really hard—“_   
  
_“—eds some way to realize — hijack the story—“_   
  
_“—risky. For both of them—will take down any—“_   
  
_“—do it. Tell me now and—“_   
  
_“—mon Shiro, c’mon, you can do this—“_   
  
_“Please, Shiro, please, you need to—“_

* * *

  
  
The Garrison calls him back from his leave unexpectedly suddenly.  
  
“Urgent matter,” Iverson tells him shortly. “We wouldn’t break leave protocol, but it can’t be helped. You and the Holts are the only ones with more on-hand input.”   
  
_You and the Holts._ That means the Kerberos mission.   
  
The Garrison has been using the new telescopes and sensors planted on Kerberos to full advantage. That doesn’t surprise Shiro. What does is the strange radio chatter they’ve been picking up, and odd frequencies that don’t make sense. No one can make out the language, but it’s certainly not of any Earthly origin.  
  
Sam and Matt both look delighted. “This is it!” Sam says excitedly, as the three of them sit and listen to the chatter, and review the data. “These are our first clues to life outside Earth!”   
  
“Did you see anything—any sign at all—while on the mission itself?” Iverson asks.   
  
“Nothing,” Sam says.  
  
“Same,” Matt agrees, “but look at these messages! Wow!”  
  
Shiro didn’t see anything either. Except when he thinks back on it, he’s not sure. He remembers fear. A flash of purple. Running. But that didn’t happen. It _didn’t_ happen. He wasn’t crazy _then_. The mission was fine. He’s sure Matt and Sam would have remembered something like that too. It was a perfectly smooth mission. Almost textbook levels of smooth.   
  
“No, sir,” Shiro says, when Iverson looks at him.   
  
They’re allowed to leave, sworn to secrecy on the subject behind a dozen classified restrictions. But even so, Matt and Sam are thrilled. They discuss the implications of the newest discovery with excitement, and already are trying to determine how to best send a signal back for first contact.   
  
Shiro listens passively. He’s exhausted. He feels terrible. His mind is a mess of nerves. But somehow, he has a bad feeling that the senders of these messages aren’t anyone they want to meet.  
  
He spots his not-reflection in his car when he finally manages to excuse himself from their presence. It waves for him to come closer. Reaches for him. Speaks, perfectly silently.  
  
 _Shiro. Let me help you. Wake up. Come back. Listen!_  
  
 _Please leave me alone,_ he begs silently.   
  
His not-reflection ignores him.

* * *

  
  
They’ve managed to coax him out of his apartment for dinner at his favorite restaurant when the first ships appear in the sky.  
  
They don’t notice at first. Matt’s telling a stupid joke, and the rest of them are laughing at it. Katie rolls her eyes at her brother’s humor, but can’t help but grin, just a little. Even Keith is smirking, more open than he usually is with others—but Shiro supposes he’s bonded with the Holts over Shiro’s condition, if nothing else. At least Shiro got that wish in the end. Almost, surrounded by friends, he feels calm and happy again. Like nothing in the past few weeks has really happened.  
  
But then Commander Holt gets an urgent notice from the Garrison, and Keith’s and Katies’ phones lights up with the lockdown notice. Sam had gotten special permission to take them both off the complex for the day, but now everyone’s phones are going wild—and within minutes, so are the phones of everyone else in the restaurant.   
  
When they head outside, they find the reason why.  
  
There’s three alien ships hovering in the air over them. They’re incredibly long and massive—larger than anything Shiro can possibly fathom—steel gray and lit with sickly purple energy. Even as he watches, another descends through the atmosphere from space. There’s more in the distance, and more, Shiro is sure, beyond that. Clouds of smaller ships swarm around the massive ones like angry insects, darting agilely through the air and swooping over the city.   
  
The sight of them sends a jolt of shock through Shiro. He’s never seen them before in his life, but they’re _familiar._ They’re agonizingly, painfully familiar, in a way that sends cold terror clutching at his heart and awful inevitability settling in his stomach.   
  
“What’s happening?” Matt asks. The others are clustered around him, and all of them are looking up at the sky. “We never even sent a signal out yet—“  
  
“What is _that?”_ Sam gasps, as the front of one of the ships starts to glow a brighter purple. “It…it can’t be…”  
  
“C’mon, _run_ ,” Keith snaps. “We gotta go! Now!”   
  
_That’s not right,_ Shiro finds himself thinking, even as Keith jostles his arm and he tears his eyes away from the ship. _Keith’s not supposed to be here._ None _of them are supposed to be here. This isn’t where this happens._  
  
But why not? It doesn’t make _sense._ This hasn’t happened before. It _hasn’t_. He’d _remember._  
  
Still, he doesn’t have time for his mind to get the best of him. Not now. He grabs Matt’s and Katie’s arms, the two closest to him, and starts to drag them down the street. Sam follows, holding Colleen’s hand, and Keith comes last, watching their backs.   
  
They barely make it ten feet up the road before the ship fires.   
  
It’s a blinding violet-white flash that bursts over their heads for some distant target, hidden by buildings. The noise of the explosion is muffled by distance, but even so they can hear it. Shiro practically _feels_ it in his chest.   
  
“The Garrison,” Katie says, eyes wide with horror. She stops dead, stumbling, and Shiro has to haul her upright by one arm. “They just—the Garrison—everyone in it—“  
  
Oh god. She’s not wrong. Based on the trajectory of the blast…the students, the faculty, anyone who had any chance of fighting attacking aliens, they’re all—  
  
“Keep going,” he says instead, tugging on her and Matt’s arms again. “Just keep going.” He needs to find someplace safe to stash the civilians and the students, and then he can try to make a stand somehow.   
  
People in the streets are panicking now. They flee wildly in all directions, screaming, calling each other, praying. Shiro’s group has difficulty staying together; they nearly lose each other twice. Shiro does his best to keep them together, to keep anyone from being trampled underfoot or split up in the crowd. As he looks around frantically to make sure he has everyone still, he catches sight of is reflection in a shopfront window.   
  
His not-reflection is there again. Not-him’s eyes are wide with horror, expression terrified. Both hands, real and metal, are pressed against the surface, like it’s watching through the glass from the other side. It looks up, towards the ships in the air, and then back down to meet Shiro’s eyes. It’s speaking again, and somehow, miraculously, it’s like time slows down in Shiro’s own head long enough for him to make out the words.  
  
 _Get out! Wake up! You’ll really die!_   
  
_Please,_ he begs whatever god or force might be out there, ignoring his not-reflection as best as he can, _please, I have to protect my friends, I do not have time to be seeing things right now. Please._   
  
Someone rushes past the storefront, crying for help. When Shiro glances that way again, the scarred stranger is gone.

* * *

  
Things pass in a blur after that. Shiro only remembers bits and pieces.  
  
He remembers stowing Colleen somewhere safe, with a number of other frightened civilians in a makeshift shelter. He remembers Katie being told to stay there too. She hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to help. Sam had insisted. “Please. Please, Katie, I need to know you’re safe in this.”   
  
She had relented, but only barely.  
  
He remembers that Keith had refused to be left behind, and no one had the authority to make him stay. “Ignoring a superior officer in a combat scenario is grounds for being removed from the program, son,” Sam had warned him.  
  
“Then kick me out. I don’t care. I’m not leaving Shiro to deal with this alone,” Keith had said, fierce and determined.   
  
He remembers himself, Sam, Matt, and Keith working as a team, trying to save as many people as possible. He doesn’t remember much of the fighting. Most of it’s hopeless, anyway. There’s nothing they can do against the aircraft with most of their own destroyed. The fighters zip overhead, occasionally getting into dogfights with other military aircraft, and all they can do is watch.  
  
But he remembers they do what they can. A few fighters go down and they manage to defeat the robots— _robots?_ —inside and steal their blasters. The success bolsters some morale, and they’re able to put up a marginally better fight with the enemy’s more advanced weaponry.   
  
And yet all Shiro can think is that none of this feels _right._ Four is not the right number. Five, he thinks, is the optimal fighting team. And it’s not the right _people_ , either. There’s others who should be here that aren’t, he thinks. But he’s not sure _why._ That doesn’t make _sense._   
  
Even _Keith_ doesn’t feel right. He’s sure Keith should be there, but nothing about the way he fights is _right_ , and it digs at Shiro’s brain, makes him more anxious the longer they do battle. Keith covers Matt and Sam with one of the stolen blasters while they try to hot-wire alien technology into some kind of bomb, and all Shiro can think is, _that’s wrong._ Keith shouldn’t be using a gun. That’s somebody else. Somebody else who he can’t _remember,_ who he can’t even summon a face for. Someone he’s not sure he’s even met.  
  
 _What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t afford this now! Not now! They’re depending on me!_  
  
“Where’s your knife?” Shiro remembers asking, as they prepare to try and ambush a small group of the robots taking prisoners. One of the blasters is broken, and they’re running out of effective weaponry between them. Even a knife would be useful here.  
  
“What knife?” Keith asks, giving him a funny look. “I’ll try to take down the robot to the left, ready?”   
  
_Wrong!_ Shiro’s mind screams. _Wrong, wrong, wrong!_ The disconnect is so strong it _hurts._ Things aren’t lining up. Things feel _broken._ Nothing is supposed to happen like this.  
  
And he remembers—barely—the sound of an explosion overhead, and the horrified scream of warning from one of the others as the wreckage of an alien fighter and a human warplane both come crashing to Earth towards them at the same time.  
  
 _“Shiro! Look out!”_   
  
The ships hit. The Earth shakes beneath him. Something hits him in the head, _hard_. And he collapses to the ground, vision going gray and fuzzy and unfocused.  
  
 _“—my god what happened? Shiro? Shiro!”_  
  
 _“Not a good sign. That looked like some kind of seizure, but—“_  
  
 _“Put me back in!”_  
  
 _“It’s too soon, we can’t! It could be too dangerous, you might not be able to come out again—“_  
  
 _“The scenario changed, it’s trying to kill him. Trying to break the cycle pushed it too far. If he dies there he dies_ forever. _Put me back in! Now!”_  
  
 _“Oh geez—help me hook him back up—“_  
  
 _“Shiro, hang on, hang on, we’re sending help your way!”_  
  
 _“Please take it this time, you gotta wake up, please—“_  
  
Shiro blinks once. Moans. The world comes back into focus, slowly. It’s still blurry, still indistinct, but no longer gray. His head _hurts._ Everything _hurts._   
  
“Shiro? Oh god, Shiro, you’re awake—“  
  
Matt. That’s Matt, Shiro realizes distantly. It’s Matt and he sounds terrified. And close. It takes Shiro a second to realize he’s leaning against someone—he can hear a heartbeat close to his ear. It takes him an eternity to put together the pieces, enough to realize Matt had dragged him somewhere and was supporting him now.  
  
“Where,” he rasps thickly, and stops almost immediately. Talking hurts too. He’s not sure if he screamed, or if his throat is so dry it’s useless, or if it’s just another thing that doesn’t make sense. He tries to move instead, push himself up off of Matt in order to take stock of the situation, but someone else pushes him back down against Matt’s chest again.  
  
“Easy, son,” Commander Holt says soothingly. “That’s a nasty head injury you got there. At least let us wrap it up.”   
  
Someone touches the side of his head, and it sends lightning bolts of pain through his _everything_. He yelps, and Matt wraps tighter arms around him to keep him still.   
  
“Sorry, Shiro,” he says helplessly. “You gotta let dad treat that first.” Shiro gasps softly, panting, but tries to stay still while Sam wraps his head.  
  
“How is it?” Shiro hears distantly. _Keith,_ he realizes. There’s another set of blaster shots that follow from the same direction, and his brow furrows at that. _Wrong Keith. Not right. Not…_  
  
Thinking _hurts._   
  
“Bad, but if he’s conscious we can at least help him walk out of here,” Sam answers. “Almost done, Shiro.”  
  
 _He shouldn’t be here, should he?_ Shiro wonders, blinking at Sam. _He’s missing, isn’t he? Katie’s looking. Matt too. Did the aliens get them in the attack? Did I find them? Is that why me and Keith are here?_  
  
God, everything is so confusing. His mind is a jumbled mess of memories and he’s not sure which ones are real and which ones aren’t anymore.   
  
“We’ll have to hurry,” Keith says. “Need to do more than just walk. In five minutes this place is going to be overrun with those sentry things. We need to be gone by then.”   
  
“Fast walk, then,” Matt says, shakily. “I don’t know if he can do much more. But none of us can carry him, he’s the biggest of all of us…”   
  
“I’ll _find_ a way if I have to,” Keith snaps.   
  
Sentries. Coming closer. But this isn’t the right team to fight them. They’re not the right colors. This isn’t the right battleground. Is it? None of this makes _sense._   
  
“He has to have a concussion,” Sam says. He sounds grim. “Shiro, try to stay focused. We’re going to help you up now, okay? Here we go. _Up…_ ”  
  
Matt and Sam haul him upright between them, and Shiro staggers on his feet, unsteady, stomach churning. Now upright and more aware, he realizes they’re hidden behind several overturned cars up one street, a weak defense but better than nothing. Keith’s crouched at one end, stolen blaster in hand as he fires up the street at the approaching enemies.   
  
_Not right. Not right. Not right!_  
  
In a large intersection their flipped cars are next to, Shiro can see the fallen remains of the enemy’s fighter, and the collapsed remains of one office building it had careened into. The wreckage is twisted in some areas, and in others its shiny, reflective casing glitters in the sunset. It’s not that far away, close enough to reach in seven or eight steps. Shiro’s lucky he survived the crash.  
  
He swallows.   
“Okay, Shiro, we gotta go,” Matt says, coaxing and gentle as possible, although his voice trembles with fright. “I’ll help you walk, okay? Just stick with me.” He wraps Shiro’s right arm over his shoulders. The feel of Matt’s fingers on his right wrist feels…odd. Not right. It’s not supposed to feel anything.  
  
 _This isn’t right. This isn’t how this happens!_   
  
Shiro tries to pull away, to stand on his own two feet. Matt frowns, and says with a frantic edge to his tone, “C’mon, Shiro, you gotta stop fighting me on this. If you don’t let me help we’re not gonna make it. We’ll never see either of our families again.”   
  
Familiar but _not._ It’s the right words but the wrong conversation. _This isn’t how this happens._ “Let me go,” he rasps. “I can walk, I can…this has to be _different._ ”  
  
“Shiro?” Keith asks. He fires off a shot— _wrong!_ —and turns to give him a worried look.   
  
“You need to calm down, son,” Sam says. “You’ve got a head injury. You’re not thinking clearly.”  
  
 _No,_ Shiro thinks, _I think for the first time I am thinking clearly, in months._ The wrongness of everything feels so strong it’s all but burning him alive inside. It’s only now, in the face of certain death, that he really notices it.  
  
“Shiro, _please,_ let them help,” Keith says, desperation in his voice.  
  
Shiro opens his mouth to answer. Then he spots his reflection in the remains of the crashed Galra fighter—the one that isn’t really his. His not-reflection watches intensely, just as before. Wide-eyed, terrified and frantic, fingers pressed against the reflective metal surface in its side. It bangs on the surface with its metal arm, but nothing breaks, and yet still it tries to claw its way free. When it spots Shiro watching it, it _yells,_ as loudly as possible, perfectly silent.  
  
 _Wake up! Wake up! Get out! Run!_  
  
He stares at it for a long, long moment, ignoring the frantic yells of his companions, ignoring the way Matt jostles his arm again. Then he says with slow, dawning comprehension, “This…none of this is _real,_ is it?”  
  
He stares his reflection in the eye. His reflection stares back, and he _swears_ there’s relief in its—no, _his_ —eyes. Not-him shakes his head, and speaks again—and this time, Shiro swears he hears his own voice speaking, distant like he’s yelling from a thousand miles away.  
  
 _“Wake up. You need to wake up. Now!”_  
  
“Shiro, _come on!_ ” Matt grabs his arm, tugging at it again, insistent. “We need to _go!_ We’ll die if we hang around, _run!_ ” The others push forward as well, jostling him, yelling frantically.  
  
But Shiro ignores all of them. The noise around him has grown muffled, indistinct. Time seems to slow. And suddenly everything makes a strange, surreal kind of sense.   
  
_Wake up, Shiro. Please wake up. Come back. Please._  
  
 _Of course. Of course I never found the prankster. Of course therapy didn’t do anything. Of course no one and nothing here feels_ right. _It’s not real. None of this is_ real.   
  
In a daze, Shiro takes a step towards his not-reflection, shaking Matt off his arm. “This isn’t real,” he whispers. The moment he says it, the _words_ feel more real than anything around him. “This isn’t real and I have to wake up.”  
  
“Shiro, what are you talking about?” Matt asks, frantic. “Of course it’s real! We’re really gonna die!”  
  
 _“Shiro!”_ Keith yells. “Shiro, come back! You’re going out into firing range!”  
  
But Shiro ignores them both. Heedless of the danger, he walks over to the shattered fighter, and his not-quite-reflection in the shiny metal surface. Not-him stares back, a mix of worry and relief on his scarred face. He’s not sure what _is_ real, only that this world _isn’t_ , somehow. But if anything is really trustworthy here, it’s the one thing that never fit in to begin with.   
  
“Can you help me?” he asks, ignoring the blast of enemy attacks firing in his direction. Ignoring the frantic yells of his companions. “To get out of here. To wake up.”   
  
His not-reflection nods.   
  
_“Shiro!”_ Keith’s voice behind him is terrified. “ _Shiro,_ get back here—it’s not safe— _Shiro_ , who are you talking to—“  
  
“Oh god,” Matt says. “Oh god, he’s not—he’s not in a good place right now, Shiro, _please_ come back, we’re trying to help you, please—“  
  
“Takashi Shirogane, I need you to come back here now,” Commander Holt says, in his most authoritative voice. “That’s a direct order from your superior.”  
  
Shiro ignores them all. “Hurry,” he whispers to his not-reflection.  
  
The scarred stranger nods. Like he has countless times before, he reaches out for Shiro with his left hand. This time, Shiro doesn’t run from it. This time, he reaches out with his own hand. And this time, when he does, his not-reflection’s arm breaches the surface, and stretches out for him, close enough to touch.  
  
The blaster shot cracks off the broken wing of the fighter, inches from Shiro’s face. He yelps and recoils instinctively, throwing up both hands as he staggers backwards. The scarred stranger strikes out with his metal hand like a rattlesnake, catching Shiro’s right wrist before he can crash to the ground, defenseless. The metal fingers are strong, too strong; they crush painfully, and Shiro can feel his bones grinding. It feels _wrong_ because somehow he knows he’s not supposed to feel anything there at all, but it _hurts, hurts, hurts_ , and somehow that pain burns up the rest of his forearm, and nearly to his shoulder. He cries out in pain before he can stop himself.  
  
 _“Sorry,”_ he hears not-him say, from so far away. Not-him’s eyes look haunted, pained. _“I’m so sorry. I know how it feels. I’m sorry, there’s no other way—“_   
  
The metal fingers dig deep. Shiro grits his teeth against it, and manages to force his own flesh-and-bone fingers to latch into that metal wrist. Not-him’s left arm reaches through the reflective surface as well to grip onto Shiro’s right arm too, and with a secure grip with both hands, his not-quite-reflection starts to pull.  
  
“Shiro! _Shiro!_ Somebody help him!”  
  
“Shiro, _please,_ please stop, we can’t do this without you—“  
  
For one moment, Shiro’s mind wavers. They sound so _real._ Keith sounds _scared_. Matt is terrified. Sam’s trying to save them all, but he’s too old for a war. Colleen and Katie are waiting for them all to come back, but without him they’ll die. He can’t really leave them, he can’t—  
  
Not-him’s grip grows weaker. Shiro can feel his wrist sliding through that metal palm like it doesn’t exist. Insubstantial. Imaginary. Not-him’s expression grows frantic.  
  
 _Not real,_ he reminds himself. “It’s not real,” he says out loud, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s not real, it’s not real, I have to wake up—“  
  
His not-quite-reflection’s fingers, flesh and metal, solidify again. Not-him secures his grip on Shiro once more, and pulls. Shiro feels the metal of the fighter against his cheek, his face, his chest, and wonders for a moment if he was fooling himself, if he’s lost his mind and all of this is a fabrication of his own brain—  
  
But then there’s an uncomfortable, slippery sensation of sliding through something gelatinous and thick, solid enough to repel passage but flexible enough to permit it for a truly determined traveler. It grows dark, pitch black. Shiro can’t see, can only feel the sensation of flesh and metal fingers on his arm, pulling and pulling and—

* * *

  
His eyes snap open, and he drags in a gasping, choking breath of air.   
  
It’s bright. So bright, too bright, with blooming white lights over his eyes that stab like daggers and leave him blinking spots and blinded. There’s shadowed, indistinct figures all around him, but he can’t make out who they are through the brilliance. There’s something strapped over his face and to his temples, and he can feel it digging into his skin when he tries to shake it free.   
  
It’s familiar, so familiar, too familiar, strapped to a table while they take a saw to his arm and strip away the skin and vein and bone one by one shredding him apart like a mutilated plaything digging deeper and deeper and deeper and there’s pain and it hurts it hurts it _hurts_ and—  
  
“Unhook me—he’s going to panic—and turn off the damn lights already!”  
  
Movement, sharp and sudden from several of the figures. Movement means pain is coming and he won’t let them, he won’t, not again—  
  
He’s not tied down, and that’s all it takes. With a frantic yell, he lashes out with his prosthetic, lighting it up even as he strikes, going for the nearest—  
  
Something grabs his arm and slams it back down against the surface. It doesn’t clatter like metal, and he realizes it’s a mattress of some kind, not a metal table. At the same time, the bright lights wink out, and he blinks away spots in a daze. He’s just waiting for the counter-attack to come, and tries to brace for the inevitable burst of pain.  
  
But nothing happens, and when he finally blinks his vision clear, he stares straight into the face of—himself. No, it’s…not quite _himself,_ it’s…  
  
It’s his reflection. Not-quite-him.   
  
“Hi,” not-him says. “Trust me, you don’t want to use that on your friends.”   
  
Shiro glances down at his metal arm. It’s currently burning a hole in the sheets over the mattress since he hasn’t deactivated it yet, and it’s pinned in place by other-him’s own metal arm, held down carefully at the wrist. It appears to be immune to its own attack, since there’s no melting metal, and other-him doesn’t appear to be terribly concerned.  
  
Shiro deactivates it quickly, and the purple-white glow fades. Other-him releases his wrist as soon as he does, and Shiro snatches it back, not liking the feel of being restrained. Based on the expression in not-him’s eyes, his counterpart knows _exactly_ what he’s thinking.  
  
“You,” he says after a moment, for lack of anything else to say. Speaking reminds him that there’s still something on his face and head, and he reaches for it with both hands, suddenly frantic to remove it. His fingers feel uncoordinated and weak, and he can’t quite get the whatever-it-is off his face, but that only alarms him further.  
  
“Easy, number one! Let me help you with that.” One of the figures steps closer, and Shiro recognizes Coran with bewilderment. The Altean leans over him carefully and removes the thing strapped to his face. When he pulls it away, Shiro recognizes a tube attached to it, and realizes it’s some kind of Altean breathing apparatus. Coran plucks at his temples next, and pulls away some sort of sensors that had been attached to his head.  
  
What the hell happened to him? Why is he wearing those?  
  
“You with us now, Shiro?”   
  
Keith, this time. Keith steps forward on the other side of the bed Shiro realizes he’s now laying in, worried expression on his face. This Keith certainly feels just a tad more real, but it’s not until Shiro catches sight of the knife handle sticking out from behind his waist that he breathes a sigh of relief. This one _is_ real. No doubt.  
  
“Yes,” Shiro says. His voice is harsh and rasping. He barely sounds like himself. _Other-him_ sounds more like him than he does. “I think. Where…what…?”  
  
“Somebody get him some water,” someone says. Shiro rolls his head tiredly in that direction, only to freeze. It’s _Matt._ It’s Matt but it’s not the Matt he remembers. He’s more muscular, with slightly longer hair, and a scar across one cheek. But Matt can’t be here. He _can’t_ be here. He wasn’t. It’s not real. He didn’t get out. It’s not—  
  
He can feel his heart thudding heavily in his chest in newfound panic, but before it beats three times Other-him catches his eye. “Hey,” he says. “He’s real. This one’s real. It’s a long story, but it’s true. Promise.”  
  
Shiro stares at him. Other-him stares back. And it’s funny, because above all else this is the one thing that makes the _least_ amount of sense—there is no reasonable explanation for a _second him_ here—but somehow, he believes him anyway. Other-him had been the only one to speak truth before, and had dug him out of that sweet nightmare. If anyone’s telling the truth, it’s him.  
  
“Want that story,” he manages, voice hoarse and croaking.  
  
“Only if you stop talking,” Pidge counters, crossing her arms next to her brother. “At least until Hunk gets that water. You sound _awful._ ”  
  
“I mean, he hasn’t talked in months,” Lance says. “There’s a reason for that.”  
  
 _Months? What the hell happened to me?_  
  
“Start talking,” he orders, wincing at how harsh he sounds. “Then I won’t…have to.” He’s desperate for an explanation now of why he feels so terrible, and why there’s another him, and how Matt got there, and…well, _everything._   
  
He struggles to sit up, not enjoying the sensation of laying down with so many crowding around him. He wants to be more actively engaged in the conversation, not stretched out on display. But sitting up alone is impossible under his own power, and his shaking, too-thin limbs struggle to support him. Keith leans forward wordlessly to help him up, while Matt takes pity on him and stuffs a number of pillows behind him to keep him upright. Shiro hates feeling like such a pathetically weak invalid, unable to even sit up under his own power, but at least he’s up.  
  
“Well…perhaps it’s best to start with discovering how far back you remember,” Allura says.  
  
“Fighting Zarkon,” Shiro says immediately. “Big mech. Did we win?”  
  
“Wow. That’s, uh…that’s a lot of story to tell,” Lance says, after a moment. “We might have to start with the spark notes version for now.”  
  
But they start all the same, explaining in brief how the battle had ended, and how Shiro himself had apparently gone missing. He doesn’t remember disappearing, but he believes them on that. They sketch out roughly how Keith had taken over flying the Black Lion, and how they’d had several battles against Lotor, Zarkon’s _son_ of all things, in the wake of Zarkon’s supposed defeat.   
  
“And then we found…um…” Hunk, having returned some time ago with the water, scratches his head for a moment as he eyes Shiro’s not-reflection. “Uh…you? Shiro? Er…how is this supposed to work, exactly?”  
  
Well, it’s not like Shiro doesn’t happen to have two names. They can split it for now. He starts to say as much, but his not-reflection speaks first. “For now, just call me Takashi. We can figure out the naming issue later.”   
  
“This…is weird,” Shiro says, staring at his not-reflection.  
  
“Same thought?” His not-reflection—Takashi, for the time being—asks, with a raised eyebrow.  
  
“Just a bit.”   
  
“Well. Same brain, sort of. They’ll get to that part of the story, I’m sure.”   
  
Shiro hopes they get to it fast. He’s _very_ curious about his strange new counterpart, and a little concerned about the edge of bitterness in that tone he’s pretty sure only he heard. After all, nobody knows his own voice better than him.   
  
“Right. Um. So, that’s when we found Takashi,” Lance continues, “but, uh, we kind of thought he was you at the time…”  
  
Understandable. Shiro would believe he was Shiro if he wasn’t in his own skin right now. The resemblance in appearance and in mannerisms is uncanny and a little surreal.  
  
They continue, explaining in brief the missions they’d had, the work they’d all put into the Coalition, Keith’s work with the Blade of Marmora, and the massive battle they’d had on Naxzela. “That was when things started getting weird,” Pidge says.   
  
“Weird, how?” Shiro asks. His voice and throat feel a little better now that he’s had some water, although it still hurts to talk. He can tell he’s out of practice.   
  
“It was…um…” She hesitates, glancing in Takashi’s direction.   
  
“It was kind of…er…” Lance tries next, flailing his hands a little, before also faltering.  
  
“I almost got everyone killed,” Takashi says bluntly.  
  
“Hey! C’mon, it wasn’t like that,” Hunk says, raising his hands in a placating gesture.  
  
“It was exactly like that,” Takashi says, with the exact same matter-of-fact tone Shiro uses when he analyzes a battle tactic or debriefs on a mission. “There’s no need to sugar-coat it. I was a plant. Nobody questioned the origin of the intel I had because nobody is going to question Shiro on battle tactics. I didn’t even consider where it came from because it literally couldn’t occur to me to wonder. It was a trap, and I led everyone into it.”   
  
The rest of the team looks enormously uncomfortable. Keith looks the other way, and Hunk fidgets with his fingers. Shiro frowns at the sudden turn the atmosphere takes.. “Back up,” he orders. “From the beginning. _All_ the details, this time.”   
  
So they explain how they’d reviewed the battle after. How they’d questioned how convenient it was that the one planet they had left to liberate in that sector was the one planet booby-trapped into a bomb strong enough to wipe out the entire Coalition. How the plan had seemed solid on the surface, but when they’d started to poke holes in it, they’d realized it fell apart when it came to the source of intel regarding that planet.   
  
“It couldn’t be backed up with rebel data,” Matt explained.  
  
“The Blade didn’t have data matching it either,” Keith adds, looking at his feet.   
  
“And it wasn’t in any of the Castle data I had collected, or in my improved Galra tracker,” Pidge finishes. “Nobody could figure out where the intel came from, when we started looking close. And Shi— _Takashi_ couldn’t pinpoint where he got it, either, but he was the one that formed the whole plan around it.”  
  
“Pidge!” Lance says, frowning.  
  
“She’s not wrong,” Takashi cuts them off immediately, before either of them can start arguing. Shiro watches with that same surreal feeling as before. It’s like sitting outside his body watching himself mediate, except he knows for a fact he’s right here and right now and that’s definitely not him. It’s _weird._   
  
“Things didn’t line up,” Takashi continues, once they quiet. He’s not quite looking in Shiro’s direction, though, directing his observations very firmly at the far wall. “I couldn’t tell you how I knew to go there, but it was too convenient that I somehow knew how to lead us to the one place that was a death trap for the entire Voltron alliance. That’s when I started to wonder. Me, and everyone else.”  
  
Absolutely nobody is looking at _either_ Shiro, now. Based on that reaction alone, Shiro can gather how awkward to downright destructive that time period must have been on everyone’s relationships, and their teamwork.  
  
“It’s…it’s kind of a long story,” Hunk offers as charitably as possible. “A lot of stuff happened. Uh, probably too much to go into now. But, long story short, Takashi is, uh…”  
  
“I’m your clone,” not-him says.  
  
It’s not exactly impossible to believe—Shiro has been sitting next to a near-identical version of himself down to the last mannerism for the hour it’s taken to tell the story so far. But even so, that sends a jolt of shock through him. “A clone,” he repeats, slowly.  
  
“Yes. A clone intended to destabilize the entire team, and lead it to its own destruction,” Takashi says. “That was my purpose, I think. Almost worked, too.” And there is _definitely_ bitterness in his voice, strong enough that Shiro’s sure even a few of the others pick it up. He doesn’t miss the way Keith’s shoulders hitch, just slightly, or the way Matt winces.   
  
“But you didn’t,” Shiro says. “I notice everyone is still here.”   
  
Takashi shrugs. “Unpredictable factor in the battle plan. Lotor switched sides for his own convenience. If he hadn’t, everyone here would be dead because of me. And I don’t think I’d have ever known it.”  
  
“But you fought it!” Lance says. “As soon as we all figured out what was happening you fought it. You didn’t want to do any of that. And _you’re_ the one that found Shiro.” He gestures at Shiro in the bed. “We’d probably still be looking…or even if we found him, we couldn’t have woken him up.”   
  
Shiro’s eyebrows shoot up at that. “What?”  
  
“Lance speaks truth,” Allura says. “After the initial discovery and the… _confusion_ that came with it, Sh— _Takashi_ made it a personal mission to locate you. Every moment we were not engaged in battles with Voltron or protecting Coalition members he dedicated to tracking you down.”  
  
Takashi shakes his head. “I’m not the only one responsible for that. The intel from the Blades and the rebels had a lot to do with that, too.”   
  
“But you saw it through,” Hunk says.   
  
Keith frowns. “I told you before…I don’t think we’d have found him without you. None of us were looking in the right places. You were the only one who knew where to really look.”   
  
Takashi seems disbelieving at that. Shiro glances back and forth between them once. There’s something there he’ll have to dig into later, but he can only imagine how awkward it must have been for the both of them to realize one of them wasn’t who he’d thought he was.   
  
“Even when we _did_ find you,” Pidge says, pushing the conversation forward before it can get any more awkward, “you were in some kind of coma. The druids had put this weird spell on you that kept you trapped in your own head. Shi— _Takashi_ said it would have made it easy to collect memories and uh…cloning…material…without you fighting back, that way.” She swallows.  
  
Shiro feels cold at that, suddenly. Iced over and frozen solid in his bones. Of course. It made perfect sense. Shiro had already broken his way out once already, and proven he’d put up a fight. Why deal with that when they could have a perfectly docile, defenseless captive instead?   
  
“Hey.” He feels a hand on his shoulder, and starts. He half expects Keith, but to his surprise it’s his clone, nudging him very carefully at exactly the right spot on his right shoulder to not put any undue stress on his prosthetic. “It’s done. You’re not there anymore.”   
  
Shiro swallows. Shakes his head. “Right.”   
  
In the fraction of a second it takes him to recover his composure, Takashi’s hand vanishes almost as quickly as it appeared.  
  
“The spell was…strange,” Allura says. “It was extremely complicated. I’m afraid I did not have the skill or the training to unravel it on my own, and it was too delicate a matter to attempt without. But Pidge, Matt and Hunk found something in the records we recovered at the same time we found you, and we were able to use that.”  
  
“It was like something out of _The Matrix,_ ” Hunk says, “but way scarier, y’know, cause it wasn’t a movie. The only way to break the spell was for you to reject whatever it made you see yourself. But if you thought it was real then you never would. We tried to get through to you, y’know, find some way to communicate, but nothing seemed to work, no matter what we did.”  
  
“But then we found a loophole,” Matt says, eyes bright. “The magic is case-dependent. In this case, it was built around the brainwaves of one Takashi Shirogane.”  
  
“…but we had two,” Shiro says, with dawning comprehension, as he stares at his clone.  
  
“Right,” Pidge says excitedly. “It took some work, but me, Coran, Hunk and Matt managed to retrofit one of the paladin training helms and the memory-storage tech. It let Sh— _Takashi_ here get in your head. Sort of.”  
  
“Not as well as I’d have liked,” Takashi admits. “It took a while to get through to you. I was afraid we weren’t going to make it.”   
  
“No kidding,” Shiro rasps, stunned. “So every time that reflection that wasn’t me showed up…”  
  
“That was really me,” Takashi says. “Sorry. I think I scared you a few times.”  
  
“Every time,” Shiro admits. “I thought I was going crazy.”   
  
“It was scary on our end, too,” Lance admits. “You…you came pretty close there, at the end. It was touch and go. And, uh, Takashi almost went down with you. But you’re here.” He grins. “You’re awake. You’re really awake! It’s been _weeks_ since we found you. We didn’t know if…”   
  
For the first time it seems to be _real_ to all of them, and Shiro can practically see the moment they’re all overwhelmed with the realization. Lance and Hunk both sniffle, and there are watery eyes and shaky smiles all around him. Keith’s arms are crossed like always, but his fingers dig so deeply into his arm it’s a wonder he hasn’t injured himself yet.   
  
God. They’d been _terrified_ for him. He wonders what it must have been like, to watch him just wasting away, day after day, after having been gone for months. Never responding. Never hearing them. Lost in his own head.  
  
He shudders.   
  
“Alright,” he says quietly. “C’mere. All of you.” He gestures weakly with both arms. It’s hard to lift his left, and the metal right is more responsive but much heavier. But they get the idea.   
  
Keith reaches him first, sitting down carefully on the edge of the bed and putting an arm around him. The hug is just shy of desperate, and Keith’s arms shake a little as he burrows closer. Pidge is the same on Shiro’s other side, careful not to jar his prosthetic too badly. Matt, Lance, Hunk, and Allura all crowd close enough to join in the pile, and Coran stands just close enough to observe, meeting Shiro’s eyes with a weak smile.  
  
It’s a little painful, all of them so close. Shiro’s body is exhausted and wasted away after months of induced sleep, and the press of bodies is a little strenuous. He doesn’t care. He wraps his left arm weakly around Keith’s back to clutch gently at Hunk’s vest, and his metal fingers do the same on the other side with Lance’s jacket, even if he can’t feel it. They burrow a little closer, and he relishes in the warmth and closeness and _realness_ of all of them.   
  
This is the truth. This is his home. His family. The people he cares about. And he will never let himself forget it again.  
  
“Alright,” Coran finally admonishes, gently but firmly. “Give the man a chance to breathe. He’s not going anywhere, let’s not batter him up.”  
  
“Sorry, Shiro!” Hunk says. “We didn’t mean to squish you, it’s just…it’s been so _long_ —“  
  
“It’s fine. It’s more than fine. I promise,” Shiro says, and he means it.   
  
“There’s better stuff to tell you,” Lance says, rubbing at one of his eyes hastily. “It’s not all sad stuff. Wait until you hear about the stage shows. _Voltron on Ice!_ ”   
  
A collective groan goes around the rest of the room, and Shiro can’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. “Do I want to know?”  
  
“Probably not,” Keith tells him honestly, as he finally releases Shiro, “but you’re gonna learn anyway, I think.”  
  
He’s not wrong. They all settle in around him, some sitting on his bed and others dragging over chairs, as Lance settles into telling a very enthusiastic rendition of their attempts to boost morale and recruit members for the Coalition. Shiro is groaning within minutes.   
  
It’s only ten doboshes into the story when he realizes the seat to his right is empty, and that his clone had vanished without a trace before it even started.


	2. Dream Cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I stole your life. But the least I can do is try to return it. And I will. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Day 2 of PlatonicVLDWeek #3, "Outside." We saw everything from Shiro's perspective, but what about his clone's?
> 
> I'll actually be posting chapter 3 shortly after this too to complete this fic's theme, so stick around for that too :)

  
“And I was promised  
The glorious ending of a knight,  
But the crown is out of sight…”  
~The Other Side, Woodkid

* * *

  
  
The door smashes off its supports and clatters to the floor, and the alarms immediately begin blaring, shrill and loud. Shiro ignores it, and leads the fully fury of team Voltron as they dash into the interior of the lab from the hangar.  
  
“Remember, we have half a varga to get in and out,” he yells over the comms. “After that, reinforcements will start to show, and the rebels won’t be able to hold the airspace anymore. Matt, keep us posted on their status.”  
  
“Roger that,” Matt acknowledges, offering a sharp salute with his staff.  
  
“The Blade will rendezvous with you at the extraction point in exactly half a varga,” Kolivan says curtly. “Three of my Blades will hold the hangar. There is other data to retrieve. We will recover it while you search for your own objective.”  
  
“I’m with them,” Keith says shortly, jerking his head in the direction of the paladins. He’s still in his Blade uniform and mask, but clearly has no intention of acting as a Blade today. Kolivan doesn’t argue, and it’s impossible to tell with his own mask in place, but his harsh silence speaks volumes about his thoughts on Keith’s divided loyalties.  
  
Shiro keeps an eye on it, but doesn’t comment. There’s no time for it, and even if their was, Keith won’t come to him anymore. Not after what they’ve discovered.  
  
Shiro’s not really _Shiro_ , after all. That’s the entire point of this mission.  
  
He’s a clone. It had taken time to pull it all apart, but they’d uncovered it, in the end. He’s a duplicate. A fake. A plant. He’d been swapped into the team unknowingly, Shiro in almost every aspect but one: buried in his subconscious had been orders. Nothing substantial, of course—just feelings, suggestions. A desire to reunite with his team at any cost, buried into his very real desire to do just that. A need to fight the Galra with any weapon or information at his disposal, no matter the source. Little goals that felt real, that he’d never question as something Shiro would do, but were always, always, designed to draw the team after him into its own destruction.  
  
His stolen memories told him he’d read about a technique once on Earth, where wild horses were tricked by one of their own into being caught. They’d always run from humans and were impossible to catch. So humans trained a tame horse to run with the herds, and lead them into corrals instead, without the humans ever needing to get close to the animals. The mustangs would catch themselves, fully believing they were following a trusted member of their herd to safety. Judas horses, they were sometimes called. He’d thought it was silly when he’d read about it—how could even horses not recognize a stranger in their midst leading them towards danger? But Shiro could see now how the technique worked.  
  
They’d done everything they could to purge him of any excess hidden compulsions or triggers. Coran had done thorough brain scans, and Pidge and Hunk had examined his version of the metal prosthetic extensively. They’d found things, and they’d gotten rid of them. But the damage had been done, by then. They’d nearly died because of the things in his head. Most of them had felt betrayed, at first, even if he’d never done anything to hurt them on purpose. They’d gotten more used to the truth, over time, but even so, Shiro didn’t blame any of them for being wary. It had been the greatest trick the Galra had ever pulled, on all of them.  
  
And Shiro, the _real_ Shiro, had been missing for months without anyone searching for him.  
  
He still leads the team. What else can he do? The others will still listen to him, if more cautiously. They’re more willing to argue against commands if they don’t seem right, and he’s not about to begrudge them that. The Black Lion still lets him fly, even after he spoke to it directly, told it exactly what he was. It had already known, somehow. Maybe that was why it had rejected him at first. But it’s already come to terms with what he is, and won’t listen to anyone else.   
  
Keith could maybe do it, and lead the team, if he’d wanted to. And if he’d wanted to, Shiro would have stepped down and let him, for real this time. He doesn’t _really_ have a place with this team, not if they want one of their own to lead, and when one of their own wants to take charge. But between the sudden revelation of Shiro’s status, and the unexpected alliance of convenience between Voltron and Lotor, Keith’s retreated so far into the Blade of Marmora it’s worrisome. He’s utilizing all the Blade’s resources to try and hunt down the real Shiro, now, desperate to locate him. And Shiro—the _fake_ Shiro, that is—is pretty sure he’s sown too many seeds of insecurity in Keith to lead, however inadvertently he’d done so. Not to mention looking at his own face is just too much of a reminder to Keith of who’s still out there, undiscovered.  
  
Shiro doesn’t blame him. He can’t. He’s doing the same thing, and his own face is a haunting memory in the mirror. Since the moment he discovered what he was, what he was made to do, he’s rejected that purpose. Instead, he’s made himself a new one, more important to him than almost anything else: find the real Shiro. Find him, and bring him back to the team, or die trying.  
  
And he does. He still flies missions, he still helps with the Coalition. They need a leader, and he’s a poor substitute, but he’s the only one left that they have. But every waking moment he has that isn’t devoted to Voltron, he devotes to the _real_ him. He combines rebel data with Blade intel, mixes in Pidge’s Galra tracker and the Castle’s reports. He uses everything he knows about the Galra from his own memories, stolen and not. He even uses whatever scraps of information Lotor deigns fit to throw their way in his awkward alliance with them, although he’s cautious about triple-verifying the sources and not taking it at face value. He thinks about his original purpose, and thinks about it again, on a broader scale.  
  
Sending him in had been a risk. Replacing Shiro with a fake required the real thing to not return. If he did the entire gambit was blown. Shiro, the _fake_ Shiro, would have been too much of an investment to risk on an off chance like that, especially not after countless… _siblings_ …of his had died before ever really being born. The Galra had put too much into the ruse that was him to risk on the real thing returning.  
  
He’s a captive, somewhere. No question. But prisons are too obvious, and the arenas are too public. He knows those are the places the others are searching, so he tries something different. He looks in the last place anyone else would ever look.  
  
And he sees what they don’t.   
  
It takes almost two months, but he finds it. A research facility that’s so ordinary it’s barely a footnote in one stolen Galra register, devoted to discovering more nutrition and health efficiency for soldiers. It’s nowhere near the war zone, and objectively makes a terrible target to attack when there are easier ones that will have a more devastating impact on the Galra war machine if captured. But it has far more security than a low-level station like that should have, and for a mere quality-of-life research facility, it’s shockingly well hidden. Like the universal station they’d found months ago, it’s buried in such a warped network of planets that its magnetic fields make it almost impossible to find unless one knows where to look.   
  
Its hidden by its mundanity just as much as its magnetic fields, but Shiro knows there’s something important there worth hiding. Which is why he convinces all of them to go for a full-scale attack, recruiting the Blade and the rebels for assistance.   
  
“He’s there,” is Shiro’s reason, when they ask. And that’s enough to get them on board.  
  
And it’s the reason they’re here now, in full battle array, armed to the teeth and determined to leave with one more than when they arrived.  
  
The Blades peel away from their strike team, darting down a side corridor towards the main server rooms. Shiro and the others head straight, following the directions Pidge finds for them. It leads them deeper into the heart of the facility, towards the main labs. Seven doboshes in, they pause outside a heavy metal door, and Pidge says grimly, “This is it.”  
  
Keith wordlessly presses his hand to the pad alongside the door. The screen flashes and beeps, and the door whirs as it slides open. A rush of cool air blasts over them, and the paladins, Matt and Keith rush through, weapons and shields at the ready.  
  
There’s only three sentries inside, and no living Galra. Shiro takes the closest of the sentries out in a rush, smashing his glowing metal fist through its chest cavity in an anxiety-fueled punch. It drops, sparking, and the other two robots clank to the ground just as quickly.  
  
“Clear,” Lance reports, looking around the room over the barrel of his rifle bayard. He lowers it after a moment, skin gray in the sickly purple light, eyes wide. “This…no way this is just some nutrition research lab.”  
  
No way is right. Shiro finally takes his first good look around the room, and it’s like a sucker punch to his mind and gut alike. The whole place is cold dark steel and dim purple lights, metal tables and sharp, harsh tools with uses he doesn’t want to think too hard on. A tank of quintessence glimmers in one corner. The entire place smells of sterile medication and formaldehyde and the faintest tang of iron. He can hear the faint sound of a ventilator somewhere.  
  
Shiro sways on his feet, bracing himself against the wall. It’s _familiar._ He doesn’t like it here; already he can hear the faint trace of screaming, harsh breathing, the desperate need to _escape_ —  
  
“You okay?” someone asks. Hunk leans forward to look him in the eye, worried.  
  
 _They’re not even your memories,_ he berates himself harshly, furious at the lapse. _Get over yourself. Get to work_. “Fine. I’m fine. Look for him.”   
  
Hunk’s expression says he’s not entirely convinced, but he nods, dispersing his bayard as he begins the search.  
  
There's nothing in the first room, and Shiro is almost afraid that all of this had been for nothing. But when Keith manages to get the second adjacent room open, that’s when they start making progress. There’s no sentries or lab technicians here, but the room is occupied even so. There’s a single metal table in the center with a cluster of machinery around it, and strapped to the table is a body.  
  
 _“Shiro!”_ Keith hisses. He’s across the room in a bound, and the others aren’t far behind. Shiro—the fake Shiro—stops just inside the door, unable to make himself take a step closer.  
  
It’s definitely Takashi Shirogane on that table. His eyes are closed, and he’s hooked up to a dozen tubes and monitors and straps that obscure half of the prison uniform they’ve put him back into. His hair is longer than it had been, enough for the undercut to have grown out. But he can’t mistake his own face.   
  
Yet he looks awful. What Shiro can see of his predecessor’s body looks withered; any muscle mass he’d had has depleted significantly. He doesn’t react to the sounds of the others approaching, or calling his name. His eyes remain closed, and he doesn’t so much as twitch. Shiro has to strain his eyes to ensure the other is even breathing under his own power.   
  
“Shiro?” Keith carefully touches the side of the sleeper’s face. Even then, the Shiro on the table doesn’t so much as twitch in response. “Shiro?” He pats one cheek, gently. “Hey. Shiro, c’mon. Wake up. Please…”  
  
By the door, the fake Shiro swallows. The image of a dead-eyed body on a metal table flicks into his mind, staring blankly forward, unresponsive and wearing his own face.   
  
_That one’s all yours,_ he thinks, bitterly. _That trauma belongs all to you. Lucky bastard._  
  
Matt steps around the other side of the table and carefully thumbs open one of the sleeper’s eyes. “He’s not responding to the lights,” he says anxiously. “That’s supposed to happen, right?”  
  
 _Subject Y0XT39 has normal response to optic stimuli. Approved for use in Operation Kuron._  
  
Oh, please no. _Please_ no. Not after all this. Don’t let this be a false trail leading to another fake. Or worse…don’t let this be the real, original Shiro, gutted of any memory and sensation that had meaning, left an empty shell of a former person dead in every way but one. He doesn’t even know if it’s possible, but if anyone could carve away a person into nothing from the inside, it would be the Galra.   
  
He can feel himself shaking at the thought. _Not this,_ he begs. _Anything but this. It’s not fair to either of us._  
  
As if by some miracle, his begging is answered. Allura studies one of the screens on the machinery near the table, and says after a moment, “Look here. This is monitoring brainwave functions, and there appears to be a good deal of activity going on.”   
  
“They’ve got him hooked up to a lot of stuff here,” Hunk adds, frowning at all the tubes. “Could be he’s just pumped full of sedatives or something. That could have adverse effects on anyone, right?”  
  
Yes. Yes, it could. Shiro snatches on to that faint ray of hope with relief. Real or fake, this Shiro on the table might still have a chance. If he’s not a brain-dead experimental failure, he has a chance. Brain-dead clones and ruined slaves don’t dream, and don’t think. That’s all _this_ Shiro needs to make his decisions.  
  
“We can figure out the details later,” he says, moving into action. Now that there’s a path in front of him, someone to save, a goal to reach, he can see the pieces in front of him that he needs to put together to make it happen. “For now, we just need to get him out of here.”   
  
Real or fake, it doesn’t matter. If he’s the real thing, they’ll figure out a way to save him on the Castle. Even if he’s another clone and ends up beyond saving, Shiro has no intention of letting any of his _…siblings…_ rot in their sleep in the hands of the Galra. It’s too cruel a fate to contemplate.  
  
“Pidge,” he orders, “Get on those consoles, download any data related to this project, whatever it is. There should be reports on his condition, we’ll need them. And grab anything that might indicate if he’s the original or…something else.”  
  
Lance frowns. “You think he’s…uh…like you?” he asks, awkward.  
  
“I _know_ we were led to believe something that was wrong already,” Shiro says bluntly. “I’m not falling for it again. I’ll help with the interfaces.”   
  
Pidge nods. She doesn’t look happy at the possibility that this Shiro might not be real either, but she understands the necessity. She gestures for him to follow her to a console in the far right corner, and he keeps his metal hand pressed to the screen to unlock it for her so she can start grabbing the data they need. They can sort through it later, on the ship.  
  
He keeps giving orders as they work. “Keith, there’s a trigger underneath the table. Galra biometric codes. Should unlock the cuffs. Get him unhooked.”   
  
To his relief, Keith doesn’t hesitate at the order. He dives under the table immediately, searching. After a few moments there’s a sharp _click,_ and the manacles strapping the sleeping Shiro’s arms and legs down pop open. Then he swings out from under the table, draws his knife, and begins sawing at the thick leather straps across the sleeper’s shoulders, torso, waist and legs. On the other side of the table, Matt and Allura are carefully disconnecting each of the tubes of fluids from this Shiro’s remaining arm and neck, patching them with gauze that Hunk pulls out of one of the cabinets.   
  
The sleeper remains unaware of them for the entire procedure. He doesn’t protest at the pinch of needles, or try to rise the moment the straps and cuffs are loose. He never opens his eyes. He doesn’t react when Keith, Allura or Matt call to him, or apologize for any accidental pain they might have caused. That alone is frightening enough to the Shiro standing in the doorway. He _remembers_ , with his stolen memories and his own smaller quantity of personal ones, how terrifying it is to be on those tables. He’d want to run the moment he could; hell, he had done just that twice now. He’d hate the feel of people manipulating him so easily, causing him pain even accidentally.   
  
Real or fake on the table, in the end it doesn’t matter. Something is wrong. He’s no sure what’s going on here, but he doesn’t doubt for a second there’s some ulterior motive besides keeping this Shiro imprisoned. He’s not sure if it’s a new project in the works, or something else, but he knows Haggar would never pass up the opportunity so easily.  
  
“He’s not walking out of here on his own,” Lance—by the door, watching their way out—observes, once the grisly work is finally finished. Shiro has to agree. They’d been hoping his counterpart would be in a position to at least walk with assistance during this breakout, the way they’d escaped before, but that’s hardly the case now. The Shiro on the table is helpless.  
  
“I can carry him,” Hunk offers.  
  
“No,” Shiro says. “We’re running low on time. We’ll need you and Lance cutting our way out with your bayards. We can’t let enemies get within range—if they do, he’s defenseless.” One stray strike, and it’s over. The others seem to realize that as well. “Pidge and I will provide shielding for the two of you with our armor so you can attack unimpeded. Allura will carry him out, and Keith and Matt will act as their guard in case of emergency.”   
  
_Coward,_ he observes. _You can’t even say his name. Allura would be better as a shield. Her bayard has range. You don’t want anything to do with him, do you?_   
  
It’s stupid, but not wrong. Shiro is the only other one here who could reasonably carry his counterpart out, and Allura _would_ provide good ranged backup in an emergency. But some ridiculous part of him is terrified of getting too close. If that’s the real Shiro—and if his guess is right, it is—he’s afraid that if he touches him, something inside him that Haggar made is going to snap and attack.   
  
It’s stupid. He wouldn’t. He doesn’t _want_ to. Coran, Pidge, Hunk and Allura had all given him the all-clear of influence. He’s one hundred percent himself, whatever that means, and there aren’t any orders left Haggar could have buried in his subconscious that would make him try to destroy his predecessor. But even so, even though he knows it’s irrational, he’s afraid that if he touches his counterpart, somehow he’s going to break him.   
  
But nobody argues, and once again Shiro is grateful for that—both that they don’t catch onto his ridiculous fears, and that they even listen to him at all. It had taken a lot of work to get them to trust his orders again, after he’d nearly led them to their deaths with a perfectly genuine, trustworthy plan. But they’re all so worried about his counterpart’s health and safety and desperate to help him that they’ll take his orders, just because he has them. Not even Keith objects.   
  
“And…good to go,” Pidge says, disconnecting from the console.   
  
“Good,” Shiro says, removing his hand from the screen. “Allura?”  
  
“I’ve got him.” As he watches, she increases her size, paladin armor extending with her. When she can comfortably carry another full-sized adult she stops, slides her arms beneath the unconscious Shiro’s back and knees, and lifts him gently, settling him against her cuirass. Matt adjusts Shiro's metal arm to drape more comfortably over his stomach when he makes no move to do so himself, and his left arm hangs limply towards the floor. “He is lighter than I remember,” she observes, a touch fretful.   
  
“Not as much muscle mass,” Shiro says. “We need to move. Pidge, with me.” He summons the shield on his right arm, and Hunk forms up behind him, summoning his yellow cannon bayard. Pidge settles next to Shiro with her own shield up, and Lance crouches behind her, rifle at the ready. Allura takes her place behind both of them, crouching her much larger frame to benefit from the shielding. On either side of her, Matt and Keith are at the ready; Matt taps his staff on the ground anxiously, and Keith looks ready to kill with the knife gleaming coldly in his hand.   
  
The sleeping Shiro is aware of none of it. He hasn’t so much as twitched since Allura lifted him. His head flops limply on her shoulder, and his eyes are closed.   
  
“Eight doboshes,” Shiro—the _fake_ Shiro—says, eyeing the timer in his helmet. “Let’s go.”   
  
The journey out passes in a whirlwind of movement. The sentries and lab technicians know where they are by then, and attack in swarms, but their numbers are limited by the narrowness of the halls. Hunk’s bayard churns up the hallways ahead of them and turns most of the sentries into scrap metal with ease, and Lance is able to pick off the remainder with precision.   
  
The hangar is trickier, when they reach it. There, the Galra can take full advantage of their numbers. Breaking out is difficult when they’re blocked off from their Lions, even with the assistance of the Blade of Marmora holding the room. Hunk is able to mow down many of the attackers with his bayard, but several slip free with near disastrous results. Allura is forced to duck behind a set of storage crates, curled around her unconscious charge to try and shield him as best as possible, while Matt and Keith try to pick off the enemies targeting her.   
  
Shiro refuses to let the battle fail here, though. Not when they’re so close. He attacks, and attacks, and _attacks,_ striking again and again in a whirl of violet purple and the hum of energy from his right hand. He brings down the sentry targeting Allura, he flings a second into the attackers trying to corner Lance, he shatters the chest cavity of a third drawing a bead on a Blade agent. He catches the barest glimpse of Matt and Keith cutting a swathe through their opponents, making a path towards the Blue Lion for Allura, and he does everything he can to draw the attention of their enemy so they won’t pay attention to the rescue. He’s constantly moving, never where the sentries finally try to shoot at him, always unpredictable.   
  
He feels more _real_ when he’s fighting. He doesn’t have to think about who he is or isn’t then. It’s just the fight, _him_ versus _them_ , and he can attack with all the combat knowledge ehe has without ever having to worry where it comes from.   
  
He strikes and strikes and strikes until the scrap metal at his feet piles up and his breaths are harsh and gasping and he can feel the sweat running down his face, and then he attacks more. It isn’t until he hears the primal howl of a Lion, and the flash of a massive red-and-gray shape slams between himself and the enemy, that he stops.   
  
_“We’re good!”_ Lance yells over the intercom from the Lion’s mouth. _“Everyone’s on board, Blades included! Get to your Lion, reinforcements are coming, we gotta get out!”_  
  
And as if emerging from a dream, Shiro blinks back into awareness. “Right,” he pants, and bolts for the waiting Black Lion.   
  
The Lion is pleased to greet its pilot, but seems confused a moment later. “I’m sorry,” he tells it softly, as he wraps his fingers around the controls. “I’m still not him. He’s not ready to fly you again. Not yet. But soon.” _I hope._   
  
The Black Lion rumbles in his head. It always feels slow and a little distant, like trying to listen to music through water. Shiro can make out some of it, but it’s not as crystal clear as his memories—his _stolen_ memories—remember. He’s never been unable to unlock the wings again…or more precisely, ever. Neither of them are entirely happy with the arrangement—he can’t hear the Lion as well as he’d like, and he’s sure it would prefer the original, even if it accepts his presence. Still, it’s enough to let him fly, and for now, that’s all they need.   
  
He turns the Lion and they leap into open space, joining the fleeing rebel ships as they escape with their rescued prisoner. Still, Shiro’s not really satisfied until they’re half a varga away with no signs of a trail, and only then can he breath a sigh of relief.  
  
“How’s he doing?” he asks, bringing up a holographic window to the Blue Lion.  
  
“The same as before,” Allura answers grimly. Shiro can just barely see Keith and Matt over one shoulder, kneeling on the floor, looking down at what he can only assume is the rescued Shiro. “Unresponsive. We were nearly hit in that battle, but there was no reaction…”  
  
“We’ll figure it out,” Shiro says, more confidently than he feels.   
  
He hopes they figure it out. He’d wanted so badly for this to be his first personal goal, his real purpose, maybe even his redemption. Make up for the mistakes of his past, however unintentional, by returning the _real_ him where he’d belonged. He’d been desperate for that to happen now.   
  
But nothing in this world is easy. He’s long since learned that lesson.

* * *

  
  
The good news is that the person they rescued is, in fact, the real Shiro. Pidge, Matt, Hunk, Coran and Allura had all been very through in their studies of the Galra data logs, and had all come to the same conclusion. _This_ Shiro was never supposed to have been found. He was the real deal, stored away in a hidden facility for the purposes of memory and DNA harvesting. There’s no trace of subconscious triggers or manipulative elements in his arm or anywhere else.   
  
The moment it’s confirmed, Shiro—the fake Shiro—starts differentiating himself from the real thing in his own head. That Shiro is the real thing, and he has no right to that title. But he doesn’t really know what else to call himself, so he just calls himself Takashi in his head. It’s not like anyone else uses the name, anyway.  
  
The bad news is, even if this Shiro _is_ the real thing, he still won’t wake up.  
  
They place him in a cryopod at first, to deal with any injuries he may have sustained during his captivity. The pod helps to break down the frankly ludicrous amount of drugs in his system, and helps to re-stabilize his withered body against long-term effects of muscle atrophy or nutrition deficiency. It seals the cuts and puncture wounds from the needles and fixes the minor scrapes and bruises sustained from the escape with ease. But when the pod hisses open three quintents after his rescue, Shiro doesn’t wake. He nearly collapses forward on his face, and it’s only thanks to Hunk catching him that he doesn’t hit the floor.  
  
He doesn’t even seem to notice. He never opens his eyes. And to Shi— _Takashi_ , that’s a frightening indication that things are far from over with.  
  
Coran examines the unconscious Shiro further, but even with all of his equipment and knowledge, he simply can’t determine why Shiro remains dead to the world. There’s no indication of brain damage or head trauma, and even if their had been, the pod should have fixed it. The pod had registered regular brain activity the entire time he’d been in it. He’s no longer under the hold of the sedatives and other drugs that had been forced on him. Except for the nutrition deficiency and the lost muscle tone, Shiro is for all intents and purposes perfectly healthy again—other than the fact that he is effectively in a coma.   
  
There’s nothing they can do for him like that, so Pidge, Matt and Hunk devote themselves to pulling apart every last shred of data from Shiro’s project files, determined to uncover what had happened to him. The rest of them see to setting up Shiro for long-term care while deeply unconscious.   
  
Coran and Allura are both appalled when the humans describe the way coma patients are treated on Earth—with ventilators and tubes and far too many invasive procedures. They produce the Altean equivalent instead, something they refer to as ‘partial crystal stasis.’ It works similarly to a cryo-pod in that it puts the patient into stasis, enough to negate the need for IV’s and catheters. Unlike the cryo-pods, it doesn’t promote rapid healing, and thus isolates the patient much less than a fully sealed pod.  
  
“Most forms of head trauma or brain damage that would cause this sort of response in Alteans can be healed by the pods,” Coran explains, as he preps the crystals for the procedure. “The remaining forms require giving them more mental and emotional stimuli to give them enough strength to wake on their own. You can’t do that with a pod, which cuts them off completely from the outside world. Of course, once he leaves he’ll be thirsty enough to drink the Claxxar Lake and hungry enough to eat a herd of _telaniiar_ , but I’m sure we can take care of that when the time comes!”    
  
The team seems reassured by this, and helps with setting up the procedures as quickly as possible. Unlike with a pod, the crystal stasis occurs on a horizontal surface more like a bed, but long and oval shaped, with several crystals embedded at points all around the frame. Once set up with soft mattress, pillows and sheets, it just looks like a particularly round bed, and should be comfortable enough to rest on.  
  
Sh— _Takashi_ doesn’t intervene with the proceedings, for the most part. He lets them do as they need to in order to care for Shiro, the _real_ Shiro, and stands back by the door, watching but apart. But he stops them only once, when they discuss setting up the stasis in the infirmary itself, for best monitoring and access to necessary tools.   
  
“No,” he tells them quietly.  
  
“But if something goes wrong, we should have him near the pods—“ Coran begins.  
  
“No,” Takashi repeats. “I’ve woken up in medical facilities. So has he. It won’t help. It will probably make things worse. Pick someplace safer.”   
  
Lance, Coran, Allura and Keith all stare at him in shock at the admission. It’s not something Takashi would normally admit to, and he knows for a fact it’s not something Shiro would admit to, either. But he needs them to understand what a terrible idea it is. He’s not the real thing, but he can still speak for him where Shiro himself can’t.   
  
“Alright,” Keith agrees. “One of the common areas, then. They’re big enough to store emergency equipment if we need it, but they don’t look so…” he considers.  
“Sterile,” Lance volunteers, uneasily.   
  
Takashi nods in acceptance. “That’s fine.”   
  
They get Shiro settled in one of the common rooms—close enough to the infirmary in the event of a real emergency, but still comfortable and safe feeling. Once he’s set up on the partial crystal stasis bed he looks for all the world like he’s merely asleep. He even looks peaceful—no hint of nightmares, no noises of discomfort.   
  
But Takashi can’t help but note that he also looks completely and totally defenseless, helpless to do anything to care for or defend himself. It’s already strange enough to see someone looking so weak, but when it’s someone identical to himself in literally every way, he just looks _broken._   
  
This isn’t right. He has to fix this. He’d wanted so badly to fix all of this, and while he hasn’t made things worse, he certainly hasn’t made them better yet. He’d come so close, but the solution is still so far away, and he doesn’t know what he can do to reach it.

* * *

  
  
After that, there’s not much else they can do but wait. “Everything else is up to him,” Coran says, looking unusually solemn. “Until we know what else could have happened, there’s nothing we can do to assist him medically.”   
  
So it becomes a frightening sort of waiting game. They can’t abandon their duties to the Coalition and to Voltron completely; there are still billions of people out there that need their help every day. But every spare minute they have, Hunk, Matt and Pidge dig through the data from Shiro’s project notes to try and find some sign of what happened. The rest do what they can to be moral support, taking whatever pressure they can off of the research team to give them as much room to move as possible.   
  
Takashi just does his best to stay out of everyone else’s way. He leads the missions as needed, and gives orders where they’re due. But nobody really wants to see his face, active and alive and most definitely not in a coma, when they’re worried over the _real_ Shiro’s safety. It’s too confusing to process.   
  
They can’t do much to help medically, but they can try to provide moral support. There’s almost always one person sitting in Shiro’s room, now, keeping him company and adding some kind of energy to the room. Coran tells rambling stories from his military days as he checks the stasis devices and monitor’s Shiro’s brainwave activity. Allura sits by his side and recites the progress with the Coalition, or rehearses her speeches in front of him. Lance reads him books, and chatters about his day and all the pretty girls he’d seen most recently. Keith, when he’s able to break out of the Blade missions for a varga or two, just sits with him quietly, providing silent support. Pidge, Hunk and Matt are there less often, with so much of their time devoted to research. But they still find time to sit with Shiro, hold his hand or pat his arm, and talk to him about the little things.   
  
He never responds to anything, of course. He doesn’t know they’re there. He doesn’t recognize any of them. He never opens his eyes, never twitches his fingers even slightly to reciprocate when they hold his hand, never makes even the ghost of a smile at someone’s antics. He probably doesn’t even know where he is, or that he’s even been liberated from a Galra lab, and it hurts to watch. Just like it hurts to watch the crestfallen faces of the team when they realize Shiro is as unresponsive as ever, despite all their efforts to help.  
  
Takashi sees most of it, of course, but he does so from a distance. He observes, but he generally tries hard not to interfere. Those conversations, those moments—they might be speaking to Shiro, and he might even have the associated memories to know what they’re talking about. But those things aren’t for him, and he feels like he’s intruding on something private when he gets too close. So he doesn’t. He lets them have their moments, and he pretends he doesn’t see, doesn’t hear.   
  
He keeps his distance from Shiro, too. It’s…awkward…to see himself so broken, and so completely, utterly defenseless. Getting too close brings back one of the few memories that are uniquely _his_ , of a blank-eyed body with his face stretched out on a cold steel table, and the memory shakes him to the core every time. He doesn’t want to think of the _real_ Shiro like that.   
  
And if he’s honest with himself, that irrational, ridiculous fear he had back during the rescue persists, too. It makes no sense, but he’s still afraid that for all his efforts to help, despite everything he’s done to find his predecessor and save him, if he gets too close to the real thing when he’s so broken, Takashi will inadvertently shatter him to pieces. He was made to usurp the original, after all. It’s not a far cry to think it could still happen, but it’s a frightening thought all the same.   
  
So he keeps his distance. He watches from the doorway, sometimes, especially if most of the team is there checking in on Shiro. But he never gets much closer than that, content to keep his distance for his predecessor’s safety and his own comfort.  
  
Except once, that is, a few nights after Shiro left the cryopods. The team is in between shifts, and Takashi is sure someone else will show up soon to sit by Shiro’s bedside, ineffectual as it might be. But he has a few doboshes, and he takes the time to step close enough to see the real Shiro’s face. Eyes closed, expression blank, breaths peaceful—he looks comfortable, at least, but to Takashi it’s not enough.   
  
“I stole your life,” he tells the real Shiro. The confession sends a sharp pang through his heart, but he feels a little lighter for it all the same. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know. But I did it anyway.”   
  
Shiro doesn’t answer, of course. He likely didn’t even hear. He probably has no idea he even has a clone, much less one standing only a few feet away.   
  
“I stole your life,” Takashi repeats, and it’s a little easier this time. “But the least I can do is try to return it. And I will. I promise.”   
  
Shiro doesn’t respond. But with the words said out loud, the promise feels real, binding. Takashi feels at least a little more resolute as he quietly leaves the room, leaving his counterpart to his slumber.   
  
He will find a way to return that life. One way or another.   
  
He swears it.  
  


* * *

  
  
No one is really surprised when Keith quietly moves back into the Castle, taking a leave from the Blade of Marmora. He’d mostly retreated so far into their organization to find Shiro, after all, and now that he’s been found Keith is back to stay by his side.   
  
He hadn’t lied to Takashi when he said he’d be there to save Shiro as many times as it took. But all the same, Takashi wonders what that move cost him with the Blade, to claw his way back out of the organization from so deep within. He imagines they would not have let one of their operatives leave so easily on a mere whim. He wonders if Keith closed doors for himself there just to have the opportunity to come back to the team, and to Shiro’s side.  
  
Takashi gives him time to process. A few quintents not stolen here and there in between Blade missions to sit by Shiro’s bedside to provide moral support. A few quintents to figure out what he needs in this new arrangement. Then he quietly pulls him aside one night after dinner, and says, “I think we need to have a quick chat.”  
  
Keith regards him warily. Takashi can’t really blame him. He’d…he’d screwed up pretty bad, where Keith was concerned. That had partially been some of his subconscious programming, constantly driving him to work towards one pre-scripted mission over any others and to fully control the situation, at the expense of others’ ideas or input—namely, Keith’s. But it hasn’t really gotten any better since they figured out what he really was. They’d gone from having a strong bond of trust and friendship to Takashi being a stranger wearing Keith’s best friend’s skin, and it’s awkward even when Keith isn’t deliberately trying to avoid him.  
  
And Takashi can respect that, really. He gets it. It’s _weird_. Weird enough that it’s easier to avoid than try to face head on, especially for someone like Keith, who has never been so good with people to begin with.  
  
But this is important, enough for Takashi to break the awkward silent truce of avoidance. And Keith knows Shiro’s body language well enough to recognize that. “Okay. About what?”  
  
Takashi takes a deep breath. “If at any point while you’re here, you feel the need to take lead back—take the Black Lion back—I want to make it clear that I’ll respect that decision.”  
  
Keith’s eyes widen at that. Takashi barely suppresses a grimace. He’d probably been expecting a lecture. “What?”  
  
“You heard me.” Takashi pauses, trying to choose the right words. “I’m not going to force it on you. Not like last time. But in light of my…status…I fully understand if people aren’t comfortable following my lead on missions. If they aren’t, or if _you_ don’t trust me leading them, then I have no right to be in charge of this operation. It wasn’t really an option before while you were with the Blade, but now that you’re back and he’s at least safe in our custody—“ _still can’t say his name, you damn coward,_ “—I’ll understand if you think it’s necessary to make that call. And I’ll respect it if you tell me to stand down.”   
  
It would hurt, of course. Takashi doesn’t really have a sense of self—everything he is belongs to someone else—but he knows it hurt _him_ , and not his embedded objectives, to listen to the others suffering when he couldn’t reach them. It would hurt to back out of the fight, to stand aside and let Keith take charge again. But if that’s what the others need—if that’s the only way to make amends for nearly killing them all as leader—then he’ll do it.   
  
Keith stares at him for a long moment.   
  
“You don’t have to decide now,” Takashi adds. “It’s an open offer for as long as I’m capable of piloting the Black Lion.”  
  
“No, it’s not that.” Keith shakes his head. “It’s…look. I’m not…really leader material. I can do it if I need to. I _will_ do it if I _have_ to, if there’s no other choice. But you…you might not be Shiro, but you still lead like he does. It’s weird for everyone, but…I think you’re doing okay. For now.”   
  
Takashi is genuinely surprised to hear that. He’s an imposter in the head of Voltron. He’d figured they’d mostly listened out of necessity, for lack of any other pilot for the Black Lion, and the moment another option presented itself it would be taken. He _knows_ Keith would tear the controls from him if he had to, if the others were in danger. The fact that he hasn’t is…well, it’s not _comforting,_ exactly, but at least it means he’s not screwing things up any more than before.  
  
“Alright,” he finally agrees. “But Keith—I value your input, leader or not. Now I know _why_ I wasn’t listening before, and there was a reason for that, but it’s no excuse. You weren’t wrong to question me before, and I trust your instincts. If you think I’m ignoring something I shouldn’t be, tell me. I’ll do better to listen. I can’t promise I’ll act on it, but I will promise I’ll think hard on anything you point out.”   
  
Keith watches him, considering. After a long moment, he finally nods. “Okay. That’s…that seems fair.”   
  
“Good.” Takashi suppresses the urge to give him a quick hug, or an encouraging pat on the shoulder. _You aren’t Shiro,_ he reminds himself. _You’re a stranger to him, no matter what’s in your own head._ Maybe they can learn to work together better as allies—Takashi is certainly going to try—but they’re nowhere near friends, yet, and he doesn’t want to make Keith uncomfortable. “That’s all I wanted to say. I’ll let you go then.”   
  
“Yeah. Sure.” Keith pauses a moment, and then says awkwardly, staring at the floor, “Uh…I didn’t thank you before, for finding him. But…thanks, for that. I wasn’t…looking in any of the right places. I’m not sure I ever would have…”  
  
“You’d have found him eventually,” Takashi says confidently. “I had a lucky guess, that’s all. But you don’t need to thank me. He’d have done the same for me.” Sharing the same headspace, he’s pretty confident in that.  
  
“Yeah. Well. Thanks, anyway.” Keith gives him one last, studying look, and then turns to head down the hallway towards Shiro’s new room.   
  
Takashi sighs, more exhausted with the conversation than anticipated. But at least that’s out in the open. If he’s going to continue to fill in for his predecessor until the _real_ Shiro wakes, the least he can do is ensure that nobody will be hurt by him while he does. And maybe, even if there’s no way he can ever really _be_ Shiro, he can at least re-establish some sort of friendship with the others along the way.  
  
It’s a rocky start, but at least it’s something.

* * *

  
  
It takes two full spicolian movements before Pidge, Matt and Hunk finally make a breakthrough in their research, but when they do, it’s big.   
  
“We’ve been looking for a solution in the wrong place,” Pidge explains, after calling everyone to Shiro’s room for an emergency meeting. Most of them gather around the stasis-bed, or near the table Pidge has set up her laptop on. Takashi leans against he wall just inside the door, close enough to observe but far enough to keep a safe distance between himself and his predecessor.   
  
“It’s not any science that’s causing him to remain in a coma,” Matt agrees, poking at one of the holographic screens Pidge displays. “It’s _magic_.”   
  
“Magic?” Coran asks, bewildered.  
  
“Right,” Pidge agrees. She scowls a little. “You know I don’t know as much about magic. It’s less quantifiable than science. I don’t understand all the spell jargon in here, especially since it’s all druid-stuff. It took us forever to decode everything.”  
  
“We think for the most part it’s some kind of spell that’s designed to keep a mind trapped, though,” Hunk says. “It’s pretty messed up, honestly. It, like…it’s hard to describe, but it’s like it uses a person’s own memories and beliefs and things to craft a kind of illusion or dream or something, and keep them stuck in it? They think it’s real, so they can’t wake up…since as far as they know, there’s nothing to wake up from.”   
  
“Oh my god,” Lance says incredulously. “They put him in the freakin’ _Matrix?”_  
  
“Same concept, but no tech, and it’s all self contained,” Pidge says. “No actual digital simulated reality or network. Anything he’s dreaming about is built out of his own memories, dreams and desires.”   
  
“But what’s the _point?”_ Keith asks, scowling. He’s sitting the closest to Shiro, and places his hand protectively over Shiro’s remaining one. “It doesn’t seem like there’s a purpose to this, after everything _else_ they’ve done to him.”  
  
“It’s so he can’t fight,” Takashi says.  
  
All of them start, and turn to stare at him. He wonders if they forgot he was even there. “What do you mean?” Lance asks after a moment, hesitant.   
  
“Twice now, we’ve escaped,” Takashi explains. “In my case they let me leave, but I still took the opportunity the moment I saw it. We— _he_ escaped with Ulaz’s help, but he still did half of it on his own. He doesn’t stop fighting to get away. He observes every detail he can for an escape chance. At some point, if they’d left him conscious, he’d have gotten out on his own. At the very least, he’d make anything else they tried to do to him difficult. They couldn’t afford that, not with me planted here. Keep him locked in his own head, and he won’t even know to run.”   
  
All of them look intensely uncomfortable at that. Keith’s hand tightens a little more on Shiro’s, although the sleeper doesn’t notice a thing. The others edge closer to the bed, as though trying to protect him.   
  
“Whatever the reason,” Matt says eventually, swallowing, “it’s _strong._ It’s supposed to be so lifelike a person would stay under its influence until the spell is removed…or until, without the assistance of some kind of life support, they…well…”  
  
He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Takashi shudders at the thought of remaining locked deeply in his own head until he starved to death, unable to wake even to sustain himself. The fact that it very well could have happened to him, or any of his _…siblings…_ as test subjects, only makes the thought more frightening. He'd been approved, after all, but if he hadn't been...  
  
“So what do we do about it?” Keith asks. “There has to be _something_.”  
  
“Could you break it, Allura?” Lance asks, hopeful. “You were able to heal the Balmera. And power up Voltron. If anyone has a chance to remove it, it’d be you.”   
  
“I can certainly try,” she says, although her voice shakes slightly. She trades seats with Keith, and settles down next to Shiro, reaching out to place a hand on his forehead. Her eyes squeeze shut as she concentrates. The room goes dead silent, and Takashi swears everyone is holding their breaths, waiting for something to happen.  
  
But after just thirty ticks she pulls her hand back sharply, as though something had burned her. “It’s very subtle,” she says, gasping slightly. “I never would have even noticed it if you hadn’t pointed it out. But it’s…it’s very strong. _Very_ strong. And very delicate, very intricate. There are so many pieces woven into parts of him, it’s…”   
  
She struggles to try and explain it, grasping for words. “It’s like a giant knot,” she finally says. “Trying to pick it apart would be difficult in itself, but there’s too much of a chance I could pick out things that I shouldn’t, either, and it will collapse. And it’s violent. I can feel maliciousness in the spell.” She swallows. “I dare not try to unravel it. Not without training. It could hurt him badly.”   
  
“So he’s got a magic bomb in his head, basically,” Hunk summarizes, fidgeting. “And trying to defuse it could go terribly, terribly wrong.”   
  
“There has to be some other option!” Coran insists. “Magic isn’t invulnerable. Most spells can be unravelled in more than one way. There has to be another solution.”  
  
“Supposedly if the person under the influence can recognize that the world designed for them isn’t real, and can reject it, it can be broken from the inside,” Pidge says. “But it’s supposed to be impossible. The entire thing is literally _designed_ to counteract that. If I’m reading it right, it constantly adjusts based on the dreamer’s reactions. If something ‘off’ happens to make them wonder, it changes something in the dream to make it seem normal, or to shield against the change. Because it’s so adaptive it’s impossible to break. A person’s own thoughts make their own mind prison _stronger_.”   
  
“If we can’t break it externally, then we’ll just have to help him realize it’s not real,” Takashi says.   
  
_“How?”_ Lance asks helplessly. “He’s never responded to any of us. He doesn’t know we’re here. He doesn’t even know _he’s_ here. How are we supposed to help with that?”  
  
To Takashi’s surprise, all of them turn to stare at him. He wonders if they’re expecting a brain-hack out of him because he’s a copy of Shiro, or if they’re expecting an order because he’s their temporary leader. Whatever it is, he supposes in the long run it doesn’t really matter.   
  
_I stole your life. But the least I can do is try to return it. And I will. I promise._  
  
“Memory,” he says, after a moment. “Thought. That’s what this thing works off of, right? If we can find a way to project other thoughts to him, a message from us, maybe it will be enough to get him to question.”   
  
“We could maybe rig something from the meditation helms we used for training,” Hunk says thoughtfully. “They were used to visually show our personal thoughts to each other, but if we reverse-engineer them to act internally…”  
  
“We can add some of the tech from Coran’s memory-collecting kit that we used on Sendak,” Pidge adds, eyes suddenly bright. “It’s used to pull and copy memories, but if we could turn it around and have it project something instead…”  
  
“Isn’t that getting a little close to what the Galra did?” Keith asks, nodding towards Takashi.   
  
Takashi feels a pang of hurt at that, but Keith’s not wrong. And he _did_ ask Keith to point out any obvious problems in his plans. The last thing in the world he would want is for _this_ Shiro to have his own mind manipulated for a purpose, however good the reasons might be. Takashi had felt violated enough learning what the Galra had done to his own mind; he would never willingly do that to his predecessor.  
  
But Pidge shakes her head, already bringing up schematics on her computer. Matt takes a look at them, and nods in agreement with her. “No, she’s right,” he says after a moment. “It wouldn’t be inserting a subconscious directive that he’s compelled to follow. That _would_ be wrong. This is…it’s more like…yelling something on a radio frequency, and hoping Shiro decides to tune into it. He can decide if he wants to, and if he wants to act on what’s said, but it would at least let us deliver our own thoughts.”   
  
Keith considers for a moment before nodding. His acknowledgement of the plan is all Takashi needs to green-light it. “Okay. Do whatever you can to rig that. Hopefully we can get a message through to him, and he can do the rest himself.”   
  
They’re already moving into action. Coran agrees to pull together the memory storage tech, and Allura goes to grab the headsets. Hunk, Pidge and Matt are already reworking the schematics on the holo-screens, talking a million miles an hour to each other in technical jargon that Takashi can’t make any sense of.  
  
This will work. It has to. He stares at his counterpart, silent and unaware of the worry and bustle all around him, and grits his teeth.   
  
_I stole your life. I will return it._  
  
This _will_ work. He’ll make sure of it.  
  


* * *

  
  
It takes three vargas for them to reverse-engineer the tech and make a new machine that can, theoretically, be used to communicate with Shiro even in this state. Pidge, Hunk and Matt are exhausted but triumphant when they produce the tech, as everyone once again gathers in Shiro’s room. It’s a large and complicated tower of interconnected parts, with a pair of little sensors that are remotely connected and can be placed comfortably to Shiro’s temples. There’s nothing invasive, no tubes, no needles.   
  
Takashi is grateful for that, at least.  
  
“You can use these headsets to talk,” Pidge explains, holding up several modified earpieces with microphones, the kind Coran uses in the training deck controls to communicate with them. “We tested it in different rooms and could kind of ‘feel’ the words even when the speaker wasn’t actually in hearing range. I don’t know how it’ll work for Shiro, though. I guess that depends on what this dream spell is making him see.”   
  
“But just in case,” Matt adds, “Try to keep anything you say simple. It’s highly likely that complex thoughts or words will get lost in translation, or swept out by this dream cage. We’re trying to do the equivalent of sneaking a key into a prison via a cake, here.”   
  
They give it a shot. They keep things simple. _Wake up, Shiro. Come back, Shiro. You need to wake up._ Takashi watches from the doorway, hoping against hope that it works.   
  
There’s no reaction from Shiro, though. They try for vargas, but he remains the same as always: silent, peacefully sleeping, trapped in a prison he doesn’t even know he’s in.   
  
“It’s not working,” Keith says, frustrated. “Why can’t he hear us?”“It’s too strong,” Lance says helplessly. “Whatever this spell is, it’s too strong…” “We’re not giving up yet,” Takashi says firmly. “Keep trying. It’s only the first day. You said the dream is adaptive. We can’t let it make this normal and brush it off. We can make this work.”  
  
They don’t look confident about their chances, not at first. But they try. They adjust the frequencies and trade speaking shifts and do everything they can to be heard. They try more that quintent. And the next, too.   
  
And that evening, they have their first success. It’s minuscule, barely noticeable, but Shiro’s expression changes. For just a fraction of a second, the tiniest ghost of a frown is visible on his face as his brows draw together, just barely. It’s gone almost as fast as it arrived, but it’s unmistakable.   
  
He’d heard them. Somehow, he’d heard them. Whatever they were doing was working, at least a little.  
  
There’s more obvious changes after that. Takashi keeps a close eye on all of them. Shiro’s brainwave readings start to change, fluctuating more often. The frowns become more common. His fingers twitch, sometimes, both flesh and fake, reacting to whatever he’s seeing. On rare occasion, he’ll make the tiniest of noises, soft, barely-audible whines of confusion. He still doesn’t react to their physical presence—he still shows no signs of returning a squeeze to his hand, or recognizing that they’re there—but it’s clear that on some level, he’s hearing their messages.   
  
But after another two quintents with no signs of actually waking, the team starts to grow frustrated again.  
  
“It’s not _working_ ,” Keith repeats, just as he had quintents ago. “He’s reacting but he’s not getting better.”   
  
“Our thoughts are still too easy to reject,” Hunk says helplessly. “Whatever he’s seeing, we don’t really belong in it, I guess. It’s too easy to find another explanation.”   
  
“There has to be a way,” Allura says. “We’re so _close_. I wish I had the training to assist—“  
  
“Don’t beat yourself up over this, Allura,” Lance says. “Seriously. It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault here.”  
  
 _I beg to differ,_ Takashi thinks, but only to himself. _If I hadn’t wasted your time for months, you might have found him before he got this bad._   
  
Out loud, he only says, “There’s a way. We just need to find it.”   
  
He desperately hopes it’s true.   
  


* * *

  
  
One quintent later, Pidge and Matt hit on the solution.  
  
“We had the right idea,” Pidge says excitedly, “but the wrong _execution._ This is a self-made prison, right? It’s designed entirely around _Shiro’s_ brainwaves and memories and feelings. It’s a cage reinforced entirely by _him._ ”  
  
Matt nods. “We can rattle the bars a little, but we’re not him. We can’t break it or even move it. We have a little effect, but it’s not strong enough to do anything. Shiro’s own thoughts and brainwaves are more effective than ours because he’s got the home-team advantage, so to speak. And we can’t even really get inside to begin with. So normally it’d be impossible to break.”  
  
 _But we don’t have one Shiro,_ Takashi realizes suddenly. _We have two. One on the outside._ “Then you need me,” he says. “I’ll do it.”  
  
Most of them stare at him. He’s the only one that hasn’t tried to speak to his predecessor at this point. He’s never been sure of how much it would even help, and even quintents later he’s still hesitant to get too close. But if _he’s_ the key to pulling the real Shiro free, he’ll take the risk.  
  
“You…you sure about this?” Hunk asks, after a moment.  
  
“This’ll be more than just using the headset,” Matt warns. “Surface thoughts weren’t enough. We’d need to get someone all the way inside the dream to shake it up.”  
  
Takashi nods. “Find a way to get me in, and I’ll do it. The only one that can save Shiro is Shiro, right? Well, I’m also him. Enough to fool this, at least. I’ve got the same home-team advantage.” Maybe it’ll be enough to save him.  
  
It occurs to him, after he says it, that it’s the first time he’s ever used his predecessor’s name out loud.  
  
“It’ll be real dangerous,” Pidge says. “I think there’s a way to let you share that consciousness and go deeper with this hardware, but don’t forget this is a trap designed for your brain, too. You get caught in it too deeply, _you_ might not come out, either.”  
  
“I’m the only one who can do it, so I’ll do it.” He’s not backing down. Not now. _I stole your life. I will give it back, whatever it takes._ “It’s the only way.”  
  
In the end this will be all on him to fix. But he’s the one that caused the problem to begin with. In the end, maybe that’s fitting after all.

* * *

  
  
The first attempt is jarring.   
  
Pidge and Hunk re-wire the transmission device for a second set of sensors, and Coran drags in a couch from somewhere that they settle close to Shiro. They have Takashi lay down on it, and at that point he’s the closest he’s ever stayed for more than a few doboshes to his predecessor, who slumbers on quietly next to him.   
  
Matt explains the basics as Pidge and Hunk attach the sensors to his own temples, a sensation that feels different enough from Galra experimentation to not bother him as much as it might have. “Let yourself trance, or doze,” he says. “When you do, you should be able to follow your way into the mental cage he’s in with these things, and sense it more directly than just talking at him.”  
  
“It should work a bit like how we talk with the Lions,” Hunk adds.   
  
Takashi grimaces a little at that. _Great. The one thing I can’t do as well as I should be able to._ But he’ll give it a shot, anyway.   
  
“Try to stay aware of here, too,” Pidge warns. “We’ll monitor things from here, but we don’t want you to get so absorbed that you get stuck, too. You have to remember it’s not real, or there’s no way we can get _him_ to realize that either.”   
  
“Okay.” No problem. Only balancing reality against illusion while squeezing into a cage designed to strengthen the latter. How hard could it be?   
  
He lets his mind relax, closing his eyes and trying to let himself doze. The noises of the others are distracting, but he does his best to ignore it, trying a few breathing exercises to settle his thoughts. Shiro knows meditation, and that means Takashi does too, and he uses it to let himself sink deeper into his own head. The noises get farther away. He’s peripherally aware of the feel of the couch, but it feels more distant now. He lets his mind drift.  
  
He opens his eyes in a bathroom, and stares at his own face.  
  
 _Mirror,_ he realizes. But the face that he stares at doesn’t look the same. It doesn’t look _wrong._ It’s unmarred, missing the gaping scar across the nose. The skin isn’t as unhealthily pale. The hair isn’t bleached white at the front, and has long bangs and a trim undercut. It’s a face that looks tired, and shocked, but not abused.   
  
_This is me,_ he realizes. _This is what I am supposed to be._  
  
 _This is what I am._  
  
He raises his right hand to feel at his face, to see if the scar is really gone, if the skin is really whole. His reflection imitates him, raising its own right hand to its face to study…what? There’s nothing there to study. It’s _whole_. It’s _right_. This is _right_. This is who he is, there’s nothing to fear, there’s nothing to—  
  
A sharp pain digs into his left hand. It feels distant, and he wonders how that’s possible—and then he remembers where it came from. _You’re laying on a couch in a spaceship_ , he reminds himself frantically. _It’s not real! This is not real! Do not fall into the cage!_   
  
But god, he’d come so close in just a matter of _seconds._ The strength of it is terrifying.  
  
In the mirror, his reflection screams, backing away in the reverse bathroom and slamming up against the glass door of the shower. His eyes fixate on Takashi’s arm, and he’s clawing at his own right hand in a panic. Takashi looks at himself, and realizes it’s the prosthetic that’s caught his reflection’s attention.  
  
 _I bet that doesn’t make sense here to you, does it?_ he realizes. _You must be the real thing. Sorry for the scare. This wasn’t the way I’d intended to meet you._   
  
The cage tries to suggest he imitate the real Shiro, like a reflection should. He shakes his head and tries to resist. _This is not real,_ he reminds himself. _You’re not a mirror image. Not that way, anyway._ He gathers every ounce of willpower he has in him, and speaks to his predecessor, as calmly and rationally as he can. “Wake up, Shiro. You need to wake up. Right now.”   
  
Shiro only stares at him, uncomprehending.   
  
_He can’t hear me,_ Takashi realizes. _The dream won’t let him. This doesn’t make sense. I’m not a proper reflection._   
  
Frustrated, he reaches out to offer his hand to Shiro instead. He’s mindful to use the left one, this time. If the dream’s kept him from remembering he lost his arm and had it forcibly replaced, offering his right might be seen as an act of aggression. “Shiro, listen. Let me help you—“  
  
Shiro shatters the mirror. He lashes out in primal fear, and smashes his right fist into the glass. Takashi feels the whole world rumble ominously around him, and the illusory space around him starts to crack, too.   
  
He feels the sharp pain in his left hand again, harder this time, more insistent, and—  
  
—his eyes snap open in the real world, and he snaps upright, nearly smashing his forehead into Lance’s.  
  
“Sorry!” Lance yelps, stepping back—and, Takashi realizes belatedly, dropping his left hand. “Sorry, we were—Pidge said your brainwaves started getting weird, and we were getting worried you’d get stuck, and Shiro reacted too so we knew something was wrong but we didn’t know what else to do—“  
  
Takashi stares at his left hand. Somebody had pulled off his glove, and he can see the crescent shape of finger nail marks in the back of his hand, already fading.  
  
“No,” he gasps. “No, that was fine. That was good. That helped. It was….that was intense. I’m not surprised he’s stuck. It almost had me in ticks.”   
  
“But it worked?” Matt asks, hopeful.  
  
“Yes,” Takashi says, after a moment. “I saw him. Just for a few ticks, but I saw him. And he saw me.”  
  
“But he resisted it,” Allura points out fretfully. They all turn to stare at Shiro, who has already settled back into silent, unbroken sleep once more. “It didn’t free him.”  
  
 “No,” Takashi says. “But that was only the first time. I think this can work. It’ll be hard, but I can make this work.”   
  
He has a path in front of him now, and he’ll do whatever it takes to reach the end.

* * *

  
The more attempts they try, the more they work out a system.  
  
They learn fast that Takashi can’t stay in that dream limbo for very long. The longer he’s fully under, the more chances the dream cage has to drag him into it, too. Once they give him five doboshes and he nearly doesn’t make it out again, almost coming to believe he’s a reflection in a mirror in another person’s head. Matt and Pidge had been forced to disconnect him from the sensors and Allura had bodily carried him out of the room for as much distance from his predecessor as possible, and even then it had taken him nearly half a varga to remember where and what he was. That had been a terrifying experience for all of them.   
  
Venturing into the dream is taxing on Takashi even when he doesn’t spend too long in it. The mental resistance required to stave off the dream cage is incredible, and although all he does is lay there for a few doboshes, he feels like he’s run a mile each time they finish an attempt. Sometimes it’s like waking from a nightmare, dripping cold sweat and panting hard, trying to remember who and where he is.   
  
Which means he generally is forced to spend at least a varga or two between attempts recovering from _sleeping,_ which is ridiculous. His predecessor doesn’t have that kind of time. Every tick he wastes out here is significantly longer in _Shiro’s_ head, and presents more chances for the dream cage to erase Takashi’s interference.   
  
“I can go back in,” he insists, ten doboshes after being woken again. He’s still panting from the last round, trying to find a new source to speak to Shiro through, and he’s desperate to get back in before he loses his work.   
  
“No, you can’t,” Keith tells him, very firmly.   
  
“I can handle it—“  
  
“No, you can’t,” Keith repeats, sharper this time. “You’re pushing too far again. Remember our deal.”   
  
Takashi opens his mouth to argue, and pauses. _If you think I’m ignoring something I shouldn’t be, tell me. I’ll do better to listen._ He had promised.   
  
“You can’t save him if you get trapped too,” Keith says, a little softer, but no less insistent. And he’s…not wrong, as much as it frustrates Takashi to admit it. It’s too easy for him to become hyper-focused on a singular goal, to the detriment of everything else. If he pushes himself so hard trying to reach the end, he’ll leave himself vulnerable and never get there.  
  
“Okay,” he agrees. “Your call.”   
  
Keith nods. Takashi’s sure he’s concerned for Shiro in all of this, but it feels…good, he supposes…that Keith at least expressed some concern over his own well being, too. In a more professional, leadership role, but even so. It’s almost progress.  
  
They establish rules after that. Takashi is never permitted an attempt for longer than two doboshes. Someone is always on hand to provide physical stimuli to drag him back, if need be—usually squeezing his flesh and bone fingers. They pull him out early if his brainwave functions start to alter, or it seems like he’s getting too deep, regardless of how long he’s in. They have very strictly enforced breaks to keep him from going over his head, and they’re always monitoring his mental state. If he’s more confused than usual about who or where he is, they make him wait even longer before he can go back in.  
  
It chafes—Takashi is _determined_ to get his predecessor out of his own head, and the regulations are frustrating. But he gets it. And he adheres to them. He will not be the weakest link here. Not again. Not when they’re all really counting on him, and not when his failure will cost them Shiro’s life and lose them another pilot.  
  
But if those rules are difficult, the dream is worse. It might be for only two doboshes real-time, but in the dream it can be as long as an hour or two. And the dream, Takashi realizes, has _rules_ —ones that he can’t outright break on his own.   
  
Shiro already exists in the dream cage. He can’t exist _again._ Takashi can get in, but his appearances are limited—he can’t take the form of another individual that Shiro can interact with at the Garrison, or his home, or on the street. He can’t re-write the dream history to make himself an identical twin, or a sibling. He can only appear in places where Shiro could already theoretically see himself.   
  
Like reflections.   
  
But once he learns that, he gets good at finding them. At first it’s simple—mirrors are easiest. Then other, subtler reflections to peer out of—tv and computer screens, glass windows and doors, warped reflections in cars or metal surfaces. Shiro doesn’t always see him, but Takashi is able to find and follow him sometimes, enough to put together more of a big-picture understanding of this world. The dream cage is simple: it’s a place where the Galra never happened, and Shiro went home after the mission.   
  
Takashi can see why it’s so enticing. He can see why it’s so hard to leave. If not for the interference of himself and the team, this world is _perfect_. Sometimes he catches himself wishing it was real.   
  
That’s usually the point when the others pull him out.   
  
The problem is that although Takashi gets good at finding Shiro in the dream, and finding places he can see him or interact with him,  Shiro _himself_ is less receptive to his presence. The more time passes, the more Takashi can see dark lines forming under Shiro’s eyes, and see how he avoids reflective surfaces more and more often. He starts covering the mirrors with towels and finding ways to reduce the reflectivity of other surfaces. He’s frightened—Takashi can see that much. He can _feel_ that much too, a distant runoff of anxiety and latent fear that’s not quite his but not quite not, either. The dream isn’t giving Shiro a chance to consider what it might mean. It’s distracting him with other explanations for the things that don’t make sense.  
  
And there’s no way Takashi can force it further. Until Shiro believes this place isn’t real, he can’t force his way out of the reflections. He’s tried, but it’s like pressing his fingers up against glass, and no matter how hard he beats at the surface with his Galra arm—even powering it up to try and cut his way through—the divide has no give. He tries reasoning with Shiro whenever his predecessor sees him, talking, pleading, yelling, but Shiro never hears him.   
  
It’s not Shiro’s fault. The dream cage is too strong. It’s not really Takashi’s fault, either. He knows he’s trying his hardest to break something that was designed in every capacity to be unbreakable for him.   
  
But still, every time the others pull him out of another attempt, and he sits up on the couch shaking and sweating and longing for the dream and struggling to remember if he’s the real Shiro or a mirror image or not, he feels like he’s failed just a little bit more.

* * *

  
“Nothing’s working!” Pidge says, frustrated.  
  
It’s a six quintents since Takashi’s first dive into the dream cage, and everyone is feeling the strain of it. None less than Takashi, who feels mentally wrung out and physically exhausted, even if it doesn’t feel like he’s done enough.   
  
“Every time I make any headway, he rejects it,” Takashi says in frustration. He rubs his face with his left hand. He’s so damn tired, but he doesn’t have time to be tired. “He’s running out of time. The more it doesn’t work, the more the dream comes up with a reason for anything I do to be fake. Eventually it’s going to be ironclad against even me.”   
  
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Hunk says. “You’re trying really hard. We can all see that.”   
  
_Not enough,_ he thinks. _Not enough. I’m the only one that can do this. I have to be better than this._ He stares at the sleeping face of the _real_ Shiro. He’s told that Shiro reacts more often now, when Takashi is in the dream cage with him—more frowns, more finger twitches, more little sounds—more than anyone was able to get out of him before. But he’s still not awake. It’s still not enough.   
  
“He needs some way to realize the things we’re showing him are real,” Pidge says. “Some way we can nudge the dream he’s made for himself out of alignment before it realizes. Hijack the story, force it to be different.”   
  
“That’d be risky,” Matt warns. “For both of them. That dream will take down _anyone_ who’s in it.”   
  
“We’ll do it,” Takashi decides. “Tell me how and I’ll try it. Nothing else is working.”   
  
Not even Keith argues with that one. It’s risky, but it’ll be the only way to save Shiro. And everyone here wants him back more than anything.  
  
The plan they come up with is simple in theory. The dream is a world where the Galra never happened, and where aliens never existed. But the Garrison still has scientific equipment and is searching for life outside Earth. So they’ll induce some radio chatter into the dream cage, the same things Pidge listened for back on Earth.  
  
Matt gives Takashi a rundown of exactly what to do and say in order to make it sound authentic enough that the dream cage shouldn’t question it…at first. “These were the mission parameters,” he says, writing down a full page of data. “We never got a chance to set up these telescopes and sensors for real, but it sounds like they’re up in the dream. This is what they’d hear, if they got an off-world transmission. It _was_ one of the Kerberos mission goals, so maybe the dream won’t erase it, because we know that mission exists there. But it should be enough of an off-set for Shiro to notice.”   
  
Takashi hopes so. It takes him a varga to memorize it all, but when he’s ready, they let him slip into the dream again. He sinks further, but before he lets himself be drawn to a reflective surface, he throws every scrap of willpower he has into changing his course. He pushes the statistics and the data Matt gave him into the dream, letting it fold into the dreamscape mesh naturally.   
  
And it _works._   
  
The dream can be tricked. It’s adaptive, designed to respond to new dilemmas and information that Shiro himself presents. It’s dangerous and frighteningly malicious, but it’s too stupid to realize the mind this new development came from is the wrong one. It incorporates the odd radio chatter into the dream, and Takashi can feel it shifting around him, just slightly.  
  
It works, but takes everything Takashi has, every scrap of strength and resistance, to make it happen. They barely pull him out of the dream that time—he’s too weak to resist the dream cage’s pull after he burns everything he has on altering it. It takes five doboshes to even realize his eyes are open, and another two to realize he’s muttering the data Matt had given him over and over repeatedly.  
  
“He’s done for now,” Keith says sharply.  
  
“No,” Takashi mutters. “No, I…I just need a few minu—doboshes, I’m fine…”  
  
“Dude, you’re wrecking yourself over this,” Lance says. “Keith’s right, you need a break too. You look awful.”   
  
“Can’t waste the chance,” Takashi insists.  
  
“Take a break for one varga,” Allura says, insistent. “If we send you back in there now, you will never come out.”   
  
Takashi glances over at his predecessor. Shiro is still, as always, unaware of the conflict going on around him. As he watches, Shiro’s metal fingers twitch once in his sleep, and he frowns slightly, but then he settles into stillness once more.  
  
“Half a varga,” he negotiates. “I’ll…I’ll be fine by then. We don’t know what this will do. We need to watch it.”   
  
They don’t look happy, but they understand the risks just as much as he does. They agree.   
  
Half a varga comes and goes shockingly fast. Shiro reacts again three more times; it’s more activity than any of them remember seeing in him without anyone actively trying to communicate with him. They’ve done _something,_ for sure. Takashi is anxious to get back into the dream cage to see what progress there’s been, if any. He’s exhausted, but determined, and that determination gives him all the willpower he needs.  
  
They let him back in, but with the warning that they’ll be monitoring closely. He agrees. But it takes longer than anticipated to find Shiro this time, and longer still to recognize what’s going on in his head. He’s at the Garrison, this time, but it isn’t until Takashi finds him in the reflection of his car that he realizes their attempts are _working_ , slow but sure. He can tell the story has changed, and he can tell that Shiro is confused; he can _feel_ it, the hesitation, the uncertainty, the memories he can’t place as real or not.  
  
It’s working. It’s _working._ Takashi lets himself be pulled out of the dream again, exhausted but relieved that at last, at _last,_ they’re making headway too strongly for the dream cage to counter. Shiro’s questioning. That’s more than Takashi’s ever been able to guide him to before.   
  
He reports that success, shaking from exhaustion but ultimately satisfied, as Hunk pushes a tray with a sandwich and a glass of juice at him. “That’s great to hear, now take care of yourself, too,” he insists, as the others exchange relieved cheers. Keith pats Shiro’s hand, but offers Takashi a nod of thanks, too.   
  
And that’s almost enough of a reward for Takashi in and of itself.

* * *

  
  
It all goes wrong.  
  
It’s only one varga after Takashi’s last attempt at the dream cage. After pushing himself almost too far, he’d agreed to wait before going back in, but Shiro’s sudden sharp intake of breath changes things. His still, quiet sleep is gone; how he trembles slightly, and his even, smooth breaths of sleep have turned into rapid pants.   
  
“What is this?” Allura asks, incredulous. “A nightmare?”  
  
“His temperature has spiked as well,” Coran says, alarmed. “Much higher than average. This is too sudden.”   
  
“Shiro!” Keith calls, leaning forward and gripping Shiro’s flesh hand. “Shiro, it’s okay, we’re here, you can wake up—Shiro! _Shiro!_ ”  
  
But he doesn’t respond. He still doesn’t hear them. And that’s when Takashi realizes that they’d screwed up. Badly.  
  
“Something’s wrong on the inside,” he says. “Let me see what it is.”   
  
“It could be dangerous—“  
  
“It’s more dangerous for _him_ ,” Takashi barks. “I can get out. He can’t. Hurry!” As if to accent his words, Shiro himself makes a low whine of pain, and his fingers spasm in Keith’s hand. To Takashi, it’s a whole new level of surreal, to see _himself_ suffering like this externally. He hates it immediately. He wants it to stop. For both of their sakes.  
  
They don’t argue after that. Pidge and Matt hook him up to the sensors with record speed, and Takashi is so used to slipping into the trance needed for the dream by now he manages it in less than a dobosh.  
  
The world in the dream cage is on fire.   
  
Galra ships fill the air. Buildings crumble and burn. Galra fighters swoop over helpless civilians, and cruisers blast holes in the landscape. Crowds of humans flee in terror, calling for help, crying out in pain. He can see Shiro in the distance, doing what he can to pull the dream-Matt and dream-Pidge to safety, flanked by other dream-versions of people he recognizes all too well.  
  
And he’s stuck here, helpless and useless, in the reflection of a shopfront.  
  
Takashi is horrified. They’d screwed up. They’d screwed up _incredibly._ He can _feel_ the malicious intent of the dream cage now, stronger than he ever has. It’s _livid_. Its prisoner is starting to bend the bars, and it has no tolerance for prison breaks. If it can’t keep its prisoner contained, it will kill him instead, a last-ditch failsafe protocol it’s enacting with extreme violence now. Already it’s escalating the change. It’s only a matter of time before this scenario kills Shiro for sure.   
  
_No. No, no, no. This wasn’t our intent. This wasn’t_ my _intent. This was supposed to help him see, not kill him!_   
  
It’s too late now. He can’t reverse this trajectory. It had taken everything Takashi had to even nudge it slightly. Shiro needs to escape before it finishes. And Takashi can _feel_ his confusion, his questions, his lack of confidence now in what he sees. There might be a chance. There might still be a chance, if he can just—  
  
He meets Shiro’s eyes, across the frightened crowds, the laser blasts, the overturned cars. “Get out!” he yells, as loudly as he can. “Wake up! You’ll really die!”   
  
But Shiro doesn’t hear him. Shiro recognizes the odd reflection he’s been seeing for what he thinks are weeks, now, but he still isn’t aware enough to listen.   
  
Takashi curses in frustration. He tries to go deeper. Reach farther. Stretches—  
  
—his eyes open on the couch, and he swears out loud again. “Why did you pull me out?” he snaps, furious and terrified and feeling more than a little sick to his head and his stomach.  
  
“You weren’t looking so good,” Matt says, worried. “It’s getting intense—“  
  
 _“Shiro!”_ Lance yelps, alarmed.  
  
If Takashi doesn’t look good, Shiro is infinitely worse. His skin has gone frighteningly pale in the less than two doboshes Takashi was out of it, and his lips have started to go blue from a lack of proper breathing. As they watch, his spasming increases, enough that Keith and Hunk are forced to take steps back in alarm.   
  
It takes almost a full twenty ticks for it to stop. Even then, he still looks frighteningly pale, and his breathing is terribly irregular. Coran shoves his way past them to fasten some sort of breathing mask over Shiro’s nose and mouth, but it barely helps to reduce the blue tinge at his lips.   
  
“Oh my god, what happened?” Hunk asks, wide eyed and horrified. “Shiro? _Shiro!_ ”  
  
“Not a good sign,” Coran says grimly. “That looked like some kind of seizure, but—“  
  
“Put me back in!” Takashi snaps, interrupting.   
  
“It’s too soon, we can’t!” Pidge says. Her voice pitches higher than normal in alarm. “You’ve never been able to do them back to back, you might not be able to come out again—“  
  
“The scenario changed,” Takashi says sharply. “It’s trying to kill him. Pushing it off course pushed it too far. If he dies there he dies _forever._ Put me back in! Now!”   
  
They regard him with shock for one too long moment, silent but for Shiro’s harsh breaths. Then Pidge leaps towards the sensors, with Matt hot on her heels. “Oh geez—help me hook him back up, hurry—“  
  
Takashi practically throws himself into the couch and lets them re-apply the sensors to his head, anxious and frustrated by how much time it’s taking. He watches as Lance and Keith flank either side of Shiro’s bedside, both fitting the speech sensors on to try and help any way they can.   
  
“Shiro, hang on, hang on, we’re sending help your way!”  
  
“Please take it this time, you gotta wake up, please—“  
  
“You’re good!” Matt says. Takashi nods, squeezes his eyes shut, and forces himself into the trance one last time.   
  
He’s not sure if it’s the urgency or the practice, or maybe that the dream cage is hungry now, but he falls into it almost instantly. The bare minutes he’s been gone in the real world are clearly hours in Shiro’s head. The streets are demolished, buildings shattered, cars overturned. The Galra-induced apocalypse has come. It takes him a moment to realize he’s staring out of the metal surface of a fallen Galra fighter, smashed down in the middle of a city street.   
  
_Please let me be real_ , he begs. _Please realize enough to let me out. Please._   
  
But the dream cage doesn’t listen, and Shiro doesn’t hear him.   
  
It takes him a while to find Shiro. He’s behind the remains of an overturned car, and Takashi only spots him when the dream-Matt and dream-Sam help him stand. He looks terrible—there’s bandages around his head stained with blood, and the blood trickles own his neck and over his chest. He looks dazed.   
  
He’s confused, though. Once Takashi finds him, he knows it, without hesitation. He’s confused and things feel _wrong_ to him. And Takashi thinks, just maybe, he has a chance.  
  
Like before, Shiro’s bleary gaze meets his eyes, real to reflection. Takashi presses his fingers to the invisible surface separating them, and tries to smash his way through, desperate. _Question more!_ he begs, frantic. _Question more to let me out! I need to help you! Everything I’ve done since I’ve been me is to save you! Please!_   
  
But out loud, he screams as loudly as he can, “Wake up! Wake up! Get out! Run!”   
  
And for the first time, shockingly, Shiro doesn’t look away from him. Doesn’t try to hide from his own reflection. Doesn’t pretend Takashi isn’t real. Instead he stares, and Takashi can see the dawning comprehension in his own face as Shiro says slowly, “This…none of this is _real,_ is it?”  
  
 _Yes! Yes!_   
  
He shakes his head urgently in answer to his counterpart’s question. He tries yelling again, even louder than before, hoping that this time maybe, just maybe, Shiro will hear him. “Wake up. You need to wake up. Now!”   
  
The dream cage protests angrily. It uses its pawns to fight back. The cage-Matt tries to pull Shiro away from his reflection. The cage-Keith begs for him to come back, to stay safe. And it’s _cruel,_ the way the dream cage uses its prisoner’s most important people to its own advantage. It hurts Takashi even from this side, to see Keith and Matt so desperate to protect and care for their friend. Because it’s real, in a way. It’s really what they’d do. But they’re leading him to his own destruction, and he doesn’t know it.   
  
_A Judas horse_ , he reminds himself, from days ago. _They’re playing my part, this time._  
  
But he won’t let them.   
  
“Can you help me?” Shiro asks his reflection. “To get out of here. To wake up.” He looks so confused, so lost, but Takashi can feel his resolve in the dream world wavering, and that’s enough for him. He nods.   
  
_“Shiro!”_ Cage-Keith yells. _“Shiro,_ get back here—it’s not safe— _Shiro,_ who are you talking to—“  
  
“Oh god,” Cage-Matt says. “Oh god, he’s not—he’s not in a good place right now, Shiro, _please_ come back, we’re trying to help you, please—“  
  
“Takashi Shirogane, I need you to come back here now,” Cage-Sam says. “That’s a direct order from your superior.”  
  
Takashi can feel how much that hurts his counterpart. To hear that much fake-genuine care and concern and to have to turn his back on it. It hurts him too, to hear it and to see _just_ how life-like it is, and yet know it’s not, to know it’s all a trick to manipulate. It’s like a slap in his own face. _This is what you did,_ it seems to say. _This is what_ you _did. Look at what a monster you used to be. Maybe you still are. Get out._   
  
“Hurry,” Shiro whispers to him.   
  
Takashi breaks out of his own swimming thoughts, and nods. This cage has no power over _either_ of them. Not any more.   
  
Like he has countless times before, he reaches out for his predecessor with his real hand. But this time his fingers don’t touch the invisible surface and stop. This time, he’s able to push _through_ it. It’s like pushing his fingers through a vat of gelatinous food goo, but he ignores the texture, and reaches for his counterpart’s own extended hand.  
  
The dream cage nearly kills him then and there. The Galra blasters come conveniently close. Shiro staggers back impulsively, away from the attack.   
  
_No!_ Takashi swears. _I am not losing you now! You’re so close!_ And he lashes out with his right arm, snatching at Shiro before he’s out of reach. He manages to catch Shiro’s right wrist, just barely. But knows too late he used too much force in his panic when he feels bones grind, and when Shiro cries out.   
  
“Sorry,” he says, horrified at himself. He should have known better. Deliberately causing pain to Shiro’s _right_ arm, with his own Galra prosthetic—god, he’s no better than the evil things that made him. But he doesn’t have a damn choice, not now. “I’m so sorry. I know how it feels.” He does. He wishes he had his arm back every damn day, even if realistically he knows he never had one since the moment he was born, and that’s a fake memory, too. “I’m sorry, but there’s no other way—”  
  
To his relief, the real Shiro doesn’t panic. He manages to twist his own crushed hand enough to latch on to Takashi’s metal wrist, securing his own hold. Relieved, Takashi secures his grip with his left arm too, and starts to pull him in.   
  
The dream cage strikes one last time. Its cage-Keith and cage-Matt beg for Shiro to return, desperate and terrified, and for a frightening moment Shiro seems to lose his hold on reality. His hand nearly slips through Takashi’s fingers as his own arms begin to fade, unable to sustain themselves in a world where Shiro doesn’t believe in him.   
  
But then Shiro remembers again, and Takashi can hear him reminding himself. “It’s not real,” he says, voice wavering, eyes squeezed shut. “It’s not real, it’s not real, I have to wake up—“  
  
 _Yes. Yes._ Takashi secures his grip once more, solid and real once again. And he drags Shiro through with him, through the gelatinous walls of the dream cage, through to the other side, through into darkness—

* * *

  
—into the real world, once again.  
  
He opens his eyes even as he hears the gasping, dragging breath from Shiro on the stasis bed. He knows almost instantly that the shock of that sudden waking is not going to be pleasant.   
  
The first thing he’d do in Shiro’s situation is attack. He’s got maybe ten ticks to get there before Shiro processes enough in his disoriented state to come to the same conclusion.   
  
“Unhook me,” he orders, even as he snaps upright on the couch, clawing at the sensors on his head. It makes him dizzy, and he’s shaking from nerves and exhaustion both, but he fights it back. “He’s going to panic—and turn the damn lights off, already!” he adds, noticing how bright the lights are for the first time.  
  
Matt leans over the couch back to pull one of the sensors off of him, and Takashi manages to claw the other off as he watches the bed like a hawk. Shiro is wide-eyed and staring, but for the first time since they’ve found him he’s responding to visual stimuli again. His eyes catch movement, and he seems to know people are there, but the lights are so blinding he can’t make out faces. Takashi can all but see the fight-or-flight split second response building.  
  
Matt finishes unhooking him just in time. Although Shiro is weak, he still knows how to fight, and he uses his best weapon—the Galra arm—to his advantage. It lights up as he strikes blindly for the person nearest to him, which happens to be Lance. Takashi lunges forward from the couch, and manages to catch the metal prosthetic’s wrist in his own metal fingers, slamming it back down to to the stasis-bed before it can burn off Lance’s face. Shiro’s hand sparks, and immediately starts singeing the sheets, but thankfully Takashi’s own hand is resistant to the energy strike.  
  
Shiro’s still disoriented, and recoils as best as he can with his arm pinned, clearly expecting a counter attack. Takashi waits it out, preventing the prosthetic from hurting anyone, but taking no further action. And after a moment the confusion falls from Shiro’s expression, replaced by shocked recognition as he meets his own face’s eyes.   
  
“Hi,” Takashi says. “Trust me, you don’t want to use that on your friends.”   
  
“You,” is Shiro’s answer. He calms enough to deactivate his hand, and as soon as he does, Takashi releases it. He sure as hell is not going to restrain the real Shiro any more than is necessary for protecting the others. They’ve both had enough of that to last them six lifetimes.   
  
The others swarm forward to speak to Shiro, now that he’s more aware again, and help him take off breathing mask and sensors. It only occurs to to Takashi then that for the first time, he’d actually made contact with Shiro. It had been prosthetic to prosthetic, sure, but he’d done it, and he hadn’t broken his predecessor in the process.  
  
It’s probably a stupid realization to make, but the thought feels shocking all the same.   
  
The others explain what happened. He’s content to let them, and only steps in a few times to intervene. Once to reassure Shiro that this place really _is_ real, even if neither himself nor Matt make sense at the moment. Once to explain what had happened, when everyone else is too busy tiptoeing around the fact that he’s a fake that almost killed them all to explain things clearly.   
  
Once to name himself, sort of. No one has ever really addressed him by the name ‘Shiro’ any more since he’s been there, but nobody really addresses him at all, any more. They usually speak to him directly, then, and there’s no need for a name. It’s a little shocking that he’s gone this long without a title, in retrospect, but now that Shiro is really awake, they need something else to address him with. He gives them ‘his’ first name, the one he’s used to distinguish himself privately since it all started. Based on Shiro’s response, he’d thought nearly along the same lines.   
  
And once, to reassure Shiro he’s not a captive, not anymore. Because he can see the way Shiro’s mind starts to freeze at the thought, and he knows better than anyone here what it feels like. He makes contact again, just a fraction of a second, picking the one spot on the right arm that isn’t so painful. Once again, to his intense relief, he doesn’t break his predecessor, and this time it’s a little easier and slightly less frightening. Even more so when he can see it helps.  
  
But even so, there’s a lot for the real Shiro to take in, and Takashi’s pretty sure he hasn’t quite come to grips with the fact that he has a clone yet. He needs time to process it. And the others need time to process that they have their _real_ leader back. So when Shiro gestures them closer for a hug, and the other surge forward, desperate for the reassurance, Takashi quietly slips out the door.   
  
It had been his goal, to get Shiro back. And he’d done it. He can be satisfied with that. Perhaps that will count as his redemption.   
  
But this is their reunion. There’s no reason for him to interfere with it, after all. He doesn’t belong in it.   
  
The one who does is already there, and finally back.  
  



	3. Real in Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takashi has quite a lot to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue of sorts for the two prior chapters, this isn't really a part of PlatonicVLD week but is a bonus that you get to wrap up the story all nice and tidy. Lucky you :)

Life after Shiro wakes is confusing, for a little while, until they can finally work out a new routine.   
  
Shiro’s awake, and safe, and that’s the important part. But just because he’s back doesn’t mean he’s ready to take over his original duties as leader. After months of captivity in an induced coma, his muscles have atrophied significantly, and he can barely walk under his own power. He’s certainly not fighting fit, and nowhere near ready to pilot the Black Lion.  
  
Takashi knows it has to be frustrating for him. He’d be frustrated too, and since they have the same brain, it only stands to reason. It had nearly killed him to have to stand back and watch the rest of the team in Voltron when he’d been unable to participate, and unable to save them if need be. It has to be even worse for his predecessor, to know he physically couldn’t help even if he’d wanted to.  
  
But they do what they can to assist. Coran designs a careful physical therapy regimen that the rest of the team strictly enforces, in order to keep Shiro from pushing himself too far. Hunk works with him to create an entire dietary plan to encourage muscle growth while still maintaining other nutritional needs. And nearly everyone is willing to help Shiro get around or get items he needs, until he’s got full movement again.  
  
Takashi helps too, but mostly from the missions angle. He keeps flying the Black Lion, mostly because someone has to, and he’s the only one who can devote his full time to it. Shiro’s not going near the Lion for a while, and Keith has been using his time as an outlier in Voltron to help with Shiro’s recovery. But Takashi has literally no other purpose, now—his one self-given goal was to find Shiro, and he’d done it. So if he’s the only body that can fill the pilot seat of the Black Lion, he’ll do it.   
  
At least he can be useful somehow. He’s pretty sure _that_ won’t last forever.  
  
He mostly avoids Shiro, and if he’s honest with himself, it’s because he’s a damn coward. Being around his predecessor is awkward at best, and frankly a little disturbing at worst. Part of it is that Takashi is practically a slap in the face to Shiro—fully fit and completely healthy, he’s everything Shiro is _supposed_ to be and struggling to reach again but _isn’t_. If Takashi’s very existence isn’t the biggest ‘fuck you’ to Shiro’s current condition, then he doesn’t know what is.   
  
But it’s also awkward on a completely different level, because in the few cautious conversations they’ve had since, it’s been less like speaking to someone else, and more like having a conversation based on reading the other’s mind first. They both think the same way, by virtue of having the exact same mind, and half the time they already know what the other is thinking. It’s like trying to think three moves ahead in a chess game when your opponent is thinking of the exact same moves and already countering them. Or perhaps more accurately, it’s like trying to play chess against yourself. It’s strange, and frankly a little uncomfortable for the both of them. Takashi prefers to just avoid it entirely.  
  
It’s easy to avoid Shiro, fortunately, since he isn’t exactly fully ambulatory at the moment. He stays out of the way, devotes himself purely to missions, and tries his hardest to not steal his predecessor’s life any more than he already has until Shiro can finally take it back.   
  
But he knows himself, and in retrospect, he should have known better than to think _that_ would last long. After all, if their positions were reversed, Takashi never would have let that stand for long.   
  
“You’re a hard man to find,” Shiro says, some two spicolian movements after he first woke.   
  
Takashi looks up in surprise. Shiro’s balanced awkwardly on his crutches in the doorway of the Black Lion’s hangar. He’s gotten better at movement since waking, in a large part thanks to the cryo-pods, which are able to relieve most of the joint stiffness and weakness of muscle atrophy that causes so much difficulty in therapy back on Earth. But moving around any great distance or for any length of time is still supposed to be difficult. Takashi is genuinely impressed he got down here, much less without a minder. Keith generally watches him like a hawk.  
  
“I could say the same to you,” Takashi fires back automatically. “Sit down before you give Coran a hernia somewhere on the ship.”   
  
Shiro snorts at that, but makes for a nearby stack of crates in the hangar, and settles down with a relieved sigh. “Just so you know,” he says, once situated, “almost everyone else doesn’t like our dark humor, but I appreciate your attempt to lighten the mood.”  
  
It occurs to Takashi belatedly that a smart-ass comeback about Shiro being missing was probably not entirely appropriate, considering the circumstances. He supposes there are _some_ advantages to having the same brain. It should be almost impossible to insult himself.  
  
“So. The Black Lion’s hangar is where you’ve been hiding,” Shiro observes, regarding the Lion itself idly.   
  
“No one else comes down here,” Takashi says with a shrug. “Keith’s the only other one that can fly it, and he doesn’t want anything to do with it. Don’t worry, though,” he promises. “I’ll give it back when you’re fighting fit again. I mean, it was never really mine.”  
  
Shiro sighs at that. “That’s kind of what I came looking for you for,” he says. And then, because they both know exactly what they’re talking about here, he cuts to the chase. “You’ve been avoiding me.”   
  
“Sure,” Takashi answers. There’s no point denying it, although actually admitting to it is still…difficult. Who likes to admit that they’re a coward, after all? “You know why.”  
  
“Sure,” Shiro agrees, with the exact same tone and inflection. “I’d be avoiding me if I felt it was in the best interest of the team to separate myself from them. Make some distance for the ‘real’ paladins, so to speak.”  
  
“Well, yeah. That’s exactly what I’m doing. What of it?” Takashi says, with a touch of challenge.  
  
“I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit,” Shiro says. “I know you’ve been flying missions with them while I’ve been unable to. I’m not sure how that makes you any less of a ‘real’ paladin. The Lions don’t choose for no reason.”   
  
Takashi shrugs. “The Lion and I don’t get along as well as we—as _you_ used to,” he says. “Your memories aren’t the same as the connection we have now. I think we both understand it’s more out of necessity than choice. Trust me—it asks practically every day when you’ll be back.” It’s hard to keep the edge of bitterness out of his voice at that. “I don’t blame it, or anything. That’s just the way it is. I’m just filling in. I’ve come to terms with that.”   
  
“Alright,” Shiro accepts. “Then what are you going to do after you’re done filling in?”  
  
Takashi is silent.   
  
Truth be told, he really has no idea. His entire purpose since being born— _made_ —had been a subconscious compulsion to lead the rest of Voltron to its own doom. He’d gotten rid of that purpose, and replaced it with a new one—make amends, and find the _real_ Shiro. Undo the damage he’d done. He’s nearly there, now—Shiro has been found, is on the way to recovery, and it’s only a matter of time before he can take back his place as the head of Voltron, where they _both_ know he belongs.   
  
But he’s never thought of anything beyond that. Now that his one purpose is almost filled, he feels…lost. He doesn’t know what to do with himself now. He doesn’t want to steal Shiro’s life, but everything that he is, _is_ Shiro. He doesn’t know how to be anyone else. His entire existence, what few months there have been of it, has literally _always_ been devoted to being a paladin of Voltron. That will be taken from him soon, and while he doesn’t begrudge it—it’s _right_ —it doesn’t give him much of anything else to exist for.  
  
All he really knows for certain is that he definitely doesn’t belong here.  
  
Shiro seems to come to the same conclusion at the same time. “You’re thinking about leaving, aren’t you?” he says. It’s more of a statement than a question. He already knows. Same mind.  
  
Takashi shrugs. He doesn’t look at Shiro or the Lion when he speaks. “I did my part. I led the missions, and I’ll keep doing it as long as you’re down for the count, and Keith doesn’t want the Black Lion. I found you—that was my goal. But I’m not fooling anyone. You’re the one they really need. Everyone will feel much more comfortable when you’re back—the Lion, the team—and then I’m done. My job’s been completed. So there’s no reason for me to be here.”   
  
  
“Okay,” Shiro says. “But that doesn’t mean you have to leave. Not if you don’t want to.”   
  
“I don’t really belong here.”  
  
“You fit in pretty good as far as I can see,” Shiro says. “The Black Lion accepted you, necessity or not. I think the only one that doesn’t believe it is you.”   
  
Takashi snorts. “I fit in because I’m _you_ , or at least a stand-in. It’s enough to accept on missions, in the heat of battle. But even then, the rest of them aren’t really comfortable around me, and I don’t blame them. It’s weird. _This_ conversation is weird. I don’t blame anyone for not being comfortable with it. I nearly killed them all.”   
  
Shiro stares at him. Takashi recognizes the look. It’s the same one he also uses when he’s trying to nudge one of the others away from doing something particularly stupid. “You’re right. It’s pretty surreal. This entire conversation has been like having an argument with _myself._ I get it. But believe me, based on what I’ve heard from the others, your actions since have more than redeemed you for anything you did subconsciously. They all believe that, even Keith. They’re uncomfortable around you because they’re trying to figure out who you are to know you better…and it’s hard to get a handle on that when you yourself don’t know.”   
  
_Oh._ Takashi looks up in surprise.   
  
Shiro grins at him, just slightly. “What? A thought I had that _didn’t_ already occur to you?”  
  
“Maybe not,” Takashi says, slow and pensive.  
  
Shiro smiles. “An outside perspective helps. And this proves you can think and act differently than me, too.”   
  
He grows serious. “Look. I’m gonna give you the same speech that we’ve _both_ given anyone else who’s had this dilemma. You’re free to leave if you want to. No one is going to stop you. But think about what you’re doing, first. You will never be thrown out of here. You’re welcome to stay, and take the time to figure out who you are here, if that’s what you want. And if you do leave, you’re always welcome to come back, too.”   
  
It really _is_ the exact same speech they’ve both given. Takashi almost wants to laugh at that, except that this time he’s thinking about it from the other end. Figuring out who he is. The freedom to leave, or not, if he so chooses. And full support from the others, including his own predecessor, for whatever he decides to do.  
  
“What if I don’t want to fight?” he asks, after a moment. Testing.  
  
Shiro shrugs. “We aren’t the Galra. I’m not going to force you into combat if it’s not what you want. I think you’ve more than earned that right.”   
  
If he knows he just passed a test, he certainly doesn’t let on. Probably does, if Takashi’s honest with himself. “I don’t know that I could stop,” he admits honestly. All he’s ever done since he was born is fight. “I don’t…really know how to be anyone else but _you_. I’ve been Shiro all my life. I’m not even a real person, not really. Just fragments of you.”   
  
Shiro frowns at that. “Stop worrying about being _Shiro_. Figure out what _you_ want. If it falls in line with a lot of the same things I do, or like, or don’t, that’s fine. But don’t let yourself be constrained to the rules _they_ made for you. I don’t.” He clenches his metal fingers into a fist, staring down at it for a moment.   
  
“And if you honestly think you’re not a real person,” Shiro finishes, as he collects his crutches and settles back onto them carefully, “then you should keep something in mind. When I was in that dream cage, you were the _only_ thing that was real. And you’re the only reason I’m alive.” He looks Takashi in the eye. “Something to consider.”   
  
Shiro leaves him there in the Black Lion’s hangar to think it over. Takashi’s grateful for the silence.   
  
He’s got quite a lot to think about, after all.

* * *

  
  
It’s almost a spicolian movement later when he willingly tracks down Shiro himself. His predecessor has been exiled to the lounge to relax after an exhausting physical therapy session. He looks quite put out about it as he sullenly nurses a protein drink, even surrounded by half a dozen things to entertain himself with.  
  
“Ryou,” he tells his predecessor, when he enters the room.  
  
“Hmm?” Shiro says, blinking at him over the drink.  
  
“Ryou,” he repeats. “You told me to figure out who I was. Who _I_ decide I am. And I’ve decided that starts with a name.”  
  
“Ryou,” Shiro repeats, testing it. “Alright, then.”   
  
“I’m keeping the surname, though,” Ryou says, after a moment. “Shirogane. If that’s alright with you. It’s…it’s still a part of me, even if I’m not _Shiro_.”   
  
Shiro grins. “You’re welcome to it. It’ll be nice to have some family.” He gestures to the couch next to him. “You’re not on a mission. Want to watch something? If you’re interested.”   
  
“Um...sure,” Ryou says, after a second of hesitation. “Might be a welcome change of pace.” He settles down on the couch next to the _real_ Shiro, and for the first time the proximity doesn’t feel completely and totally uncomfortable.   
  
Because the ‘real’ Shiro isn’t really the ‘real Shiro’ anymore, he realizes. He’s just _Shiro._ And Ryou is just Ryou. Not a copy. Not a fake. His own person.   
  
The realization is more relaxing than anticipated, but it feels good, too. He’s still not quite sure where he’s going, but he doesn’t feel like he’s drifting anymore. He’ll find a way. And he’ll find out who he is. But there’s no rush.   
  
He has all the time in the world to get there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess this also counts as my S3/4 reaction fic? I love the clone theory, personally. I hope you enjoy this take on it :)


End file.
